Clint Margrave

VISITOR

I was going to write about that time I caught my friend

masturbating the summer before 8^th grade,
but then I log on to Facebook and see a woman has died,
a woman I don’t know,

but share 42 mutual friends with.

I was going to write about how I stopped by my friend’s house

to visit one sunny morning, peeked in the window

and saw him stroking his dick while on his parents’ living room couch.

And though it gave me no pleasure to see it,

I still looked.

I was going to write something entirely different,

like how when I finally rang his doorbell,

I got embarrassed and took off running,

ashamed to have witnessed

such a private and solitary act.

I was going to write about that, but now I’m scanning this woman’s profile,

this woman—with 42 mutual friends—who died,

and I’m reading all the posts she made,

about the tumors and the doctors
and how she desperately wanted a visitor.

Clint Margrave is the author of the novel Lying Bastard (Run Amok Books, 2020) and two poetry collections, Salute the Wreckage (NYQ Books, 2016) and The Early Death of Men (NYQ Books, 2012). His poetry and fiction have appeared in The Threepenny Review, New York Quarterly, Rattle, Ambit (UK), Verse Daily, and The Writer’s Almanac, among others. He lives in Los Angeles, CA. Full Profile

Clint Margrave is the author of several books of fiction and poetry, including Lying Bastard, Salute the Wreckage, The Early Death of Men, and most recently, Visitor. His work has appeared in The Threepenny Review, Rattle, The Moth, Ambit, and Los Angeles Review of Books, among others. Full Profile