Marilyn Haunting

Marilyn wakes
eats corn flakes from
chipped ceramic bowl
a bougie mansion’s abandoned kitchen

Marilyn sings into the void
claws her hair
into ringlets of ice
she knows she blazes

Marilyn waves
on the way to the grocery store
she’s still famous and the banshee in the kangol,
the turnip-worshiping shade lose their tongues

Marilyn wings it every day
homeless undead, no PO Box
she follows a retiree from the produce section
sits shotgun, enjoys Patsy Cline

Marilyn takes Ambien with ethereal fingers
watching Law & Order
over old folks’ fragile shoulders
she sparkles at every solved mystery

Marilyn sleeps on a sofa
dreaming
praying to the sun and moon and to Death
(clearly on sabbatical)

Marilyn wakes
eats oatmeal
in the kitchen; “Hi, I’m Norma, hello hello”
and they only see the wall through her ribcage

Michael B. Tager is a writer and editor. He's been published most recently in Necessary Fiction, Pidgeonholes, Hobart, and Barrelhouse. He thinks the Oxford Comma is for suckers.

The genre2 interview

What is your preferred genre and why?

I've been writing fiction for a long time, and no one's ever asked me 'why' I wrote in that genre. So this is kind of a first, and my answer might be kind of rambly.

I wrote my first short story in the 3rd grade when I wrote Final Fantasy fan fic, followed shortly by X-Men fan fic. There was also some Western mythology thrown in there (Greek or Norse probably), because I've never been cool and have been reading nerd shit since the jump. So I've been doing it a long time, even if I've never thought about "why" until now.

I guess I really just like storytelling, but I'm not super interested in the actual truth so much as the emotional truth. When I write personal essay—which isn't super often anymore—I really lean hard into the creative part of nonfiction. But I generally hate talking about myself so I skip essay much of the time. So that leads me straight into fiction, where I can borrow my own story (or anecdotes I've heard from others), twist it around so it's fiction but it still has that kernel of truth that makes me glow.

And I still write a lot of nerdy shit. Sci fi, horror, fantasy. I actually really want to be a fantasy writer, but haven't had anything click yet.

Why did this piece compel you to move to this alternative genre?

I write a fair amount of poetry, though it's definitely a sub-genre. I think I started in grad school because my prose writing had hit a bit of a slog, specifically in the musicality of it. And at the same time, I heard a bunch of famous writers give readings and Q&As (Michael Chabon, Abigail Thomas, Andre Dubus III), and they all said the same thing about poetry: while they don't write it, they read a little bit of poetry at the end of the night to inspire them.

Shortly after, I encountered some poetry that blew me away and also had a real narrative thread. Ted Kooser's "Splitting An Order" and Tracy Brimhall's "Our Lady of the Ruins" got me going!

So I started writing some weird, celebrity/pop culture-based poetry. And for the past three years, I've been dicking around with it. A couple poems here, a couple poems there. "Marilyn Haunting" is a part of my Celebrity Ghosts series that I'm still experimenting with.

I really like writing poems, and I'm going to continue to do it (here and there).

What challenges or surprises did you encounter while working in this genre?

Mostly that people actually kind of like my poems. And that people think they're funny...which I intend them to be a lot of the time.

I'm still struggling with imagery and language use. I think because I've had no training at all in poetry—no workshops, no writing groups, no nothing—it both hinders me and helps me a little. And because I don't write a ton of poetry, the evolution is slow.

Honestly though, I'm just enjoying myself. And that might be the biggest surprise of all.