Drive-Thru Girl

"You are geared-up and ready: / Head-set, hip-set, thumb upon the greased black trigger"

Aaron Gwyn posted an early poem of his on Twitter:

To the Drive-Thru Girl at Bojangles to Whom I Will One Day Propose Marriage

You who are pigtails and pink gums
poke your face from out the building’s side
and extend, into my hands, an offering
(5-piece wings, large sweat tea, two biscuits sopped with icing).
You are geared-up and ready:
Head-set, hip-set, thumb upon the greased black trigger:
take those orders through the squawking box,
finger the cash and soda,
you golden, inbred goddess,
Aphrodite deep-fried and pimpled,
pass me the slack, the plastic sack,
cupholder, spork, and straw—
do I want sauce with that…
Dearest creature: do you even have to ask?

Aaron makes an aesthetic choice that I find interesting: he pairs an old poetic form (the poem is a Petrarchan sonnet) with post-modern content (ironically simping for a drive-thru girl). (By the way, you should never simp, not even ironically. The author was supposedly young here—learn from his mistake).

One way to create fresh poetry in the year of our Lord 2023 might be to blend the most ancient poetic structures with the newest, most deranged and dopamine-fried content on the internet.