Ode to Mark Ruffalo by Megan J. Arlett
Associate poetry editor Hannah Cajandig-Taylor on today’s bonus poem: When I came upon this piece in the queue, I audibly gasped. Megan J. Arlett’s voice brilliantly shines in the clever echoes of this unexpected love poem. “Ode to Mark Ruffalo” urges the reader to consider what nostalgic complexities lie below the surface of our collective pop culture obsession: the playful and the poignant, the tender and the timely, and more than anything, what it means to want and be wanted. This piece is truly a gem.
Ode to Mark Ruffalo
I want to be his
13 Going on 30. I love the crease between his soft,
uneven eyes. I love when he wears a cardigan
and the middle-aged lesbian confidence of it.
I could even learn to love his bad haircut in Spotlight:
too-short fringe skimming the forehead
in perpetual concern.
I love his salt and pepper
curls. I want to thread my finger
through one in a mostly non-sexual way
because I especially love that he loves his wife.
It’s not entirely that I want him,
but that I think, Yes, I could fall asleep
and wake up beside a man like that.
I could sit beside him as we drive
through the night. Another road trip,
another state where the stray dogs skulk
like cryptids, their presence something cold
swallowed. Two gas stops past the New Mexico-Texas line,
where the landscape slopes away into its own endlessness,
we’ll talk about environmentalism
and social injustice but also the best flavour popsicle (blue)
and I want to hear all about his siblings, too.
Later, he’ll sleep slackly in the passenger seat,
his chest methodical. It will be agony, the want
to hear his heartbeat. The need to run
my fingers through his chest hair
while I’m cuffed at 10 and 2.
Build a cardboard dollhouse for me, Mark Ruffalo.
Investigate my crimes.
I want to tell him all my secrets
in the corner of some bar in Manhattan,
the candle on the table between us burned down
to a translucent pool. I want to hear him laugh
at my jokes. I want to be the Kirsten Dunst beside him
dancing in our underwear. I want to stand
next to him for a photo knowing
he won’t place his hand too low on my back.
Don’t we all want a man like that?
When they call his name after “And the Oscar goes to…”
I’ll stand in my lonely living room like a golden
statuette. My hands clap clap clapping.
Reading between the lines for my name
while he gives his thanks. And thanks to you, too,
Mr. Ruffalo. For showing us how
the bar really isn’t all that high,
just higher than most seem able to go.
In that Manhattan bar as the candle finally dies,
I’ll dip my fingers in to give each one a waxy hat.
I want him to truly listen to me, as I tap my fingers
lightly on the table, when I say:
That’s my secret, too, Mr. Hulk. I’m always angry.
Megan J. Arlett was born in the UK, grew up in Spain, and now lives in Texas where she is pursuing her PhD. The recipient of two Academy of American Poets Prizes, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Best New Poets 2019, Best New British and Irish Poets, The Kenyon Review, Ninth Letter, Prairie Schooner, Third Coast, and elsewhere.
