courtney marie

{what happens next}

years from now, you'll move into the house next door. you'll bring your new wife. the rats will
run from your house to my house and i'll get a cat to scare them away. you'll raise chickens and
i'll find feathers in my yard. your wife will have children and you'll smoke a pipe outside after
everyone has gone to bed. this will often be quite late but i will usually be drinking a glass of
wine on my porch and picking up feathers. we will have this time to talk. years will pass with
surprising swiftness. you'll grow a beard. you'll bring over eggs in the summer. your children will
play with the cat in the yard. you will smoke your pipe and i'll bake two pies, one for your house,
one for mine. your wife will feed the chickens and the children. one night, i will wake up with
feathers in my hair. i will go to the porch where you sit rocking.  you will say, what about the
ocean? and blow rings of smoke. you will say, you should go there, while i sip my wine,
imagining a future with these moments in the past.

{this is how you get ants}

tell them they are welcome to come over anytime
write them long letters about
the contents of your kitchen cabinets
keep expired food
buy fresh fruit
dust the rims of drained wine glasses
with sugar
get to know their mothers
send them chocolates on their birthday
cook but forget to eat
take a lot of walks
leave all the windows open
and apple juice on the sills
call them and ask them
what they think of your new poem
tell them to be honest
tell them it might rain
build a house right on top
of a massive colony in the desert
and let the faucets drip
go on vacation
leave out candy wrappers
buy a carton of poison
just in case things get out of hand
meanwhile give them nicknames
and joke around
ants actually have
a very good sense of humor

i think the best souvenirs are the moments that are afforded by travel that cannot be acquired any other way, so the physical objects i treasure most from any adventure are all photographs.

courtney marie is a writer and artist currently living in Denton, Texas. she enjoys working with text as an art medium and performance object. her work has appeared in Spooky Girlfriend Press, Literary Orphans, Black Sun Lit, The Thing Itself, etc. but also in basements and museums, street corners, bars, and art galleries; in cities all over the country. she is the co-founder and primary organizer of Spiderweb Salon in Denton (Best Literary Arts Group 2016, Dallas Observer), co-host of Pegasus Reading Series in Dallas, and the host of Spiderweb Salon’s literary podcast, produced by Pariah Art. she writes a lot of letters.