Fans
Your managers twine some marigolds around
the hempen loop before they lower it
around your neck. How perfectly it fits!
The crowd that paid to pack this county fairground
hollers your name. You wave. You never check
behind, above yourself to see the garland
connects a wooden crossbeam to your neck.
This is a spectacle, and you are starring,
led by the hand onto a hollow stage,
invited to collect a prize. You see
fists that faced out in solidarity
turning to show their knuckles out of rage.
You tear the petals. You have been a fool.
The raffle winner kicks away your stool.
Amit Majmudar is a poet, novelist, essayist, and translator. He works as a diagnostic nuclear radiologist in Westerville, Ohio, where he lives with his wife and three children. Recent books include Twin A: A Memoir (Slant Books, 2023), The Great Game: Essays on Poetics (Acre Books, 2024), and the hybrid work Three Metamorphoses (Orison Books, 2025). His new poetry collection, Things My Grandmother Said, is forthcoming from Knopf in 2026. More information at www.amitmajmudar.com