Poetry: “We Met At Army Cadets” by Carson Wolfe
Carson Wolfe’s poem begins with an almost tender description of this person who, through the course of the poem, becomes a kind of icon for fragile masculinity, the way that women and femmes allow a kind of mutually agreed-upon ignorance when it comes to the shortcomings of the men around them. The poem exists in this surreal, imagined reality that we call the patriarchy, and Wolfe cuts right into the heart of it. It isn’t violence that leads the speaker to hold their tongue, when they discover the secret shortcomings behind the confidence of the cadet they describe, rather, it’s pity. Sometimes, we allow men to manipulate us because we are afraid, but sometimes, we do it because we understand that in order to survive, they need us to play their games and say our lines just as they’ve written them, and it’s easier to comply than make a big scene. This is power but it’s a weird power. It’s unpredictable, faulty, the blue cheese of talents. Wolfe is aware of this weirdness and the ambiguity is at the center of the poem, as they try to understand and explain these age-old questions of the way that we interact with each other, how we push and pull and hide and reveal. Whole empires have gone to dust because men declared war after learning of a lie told by a fake prophet, or a woman didn’t want to cause a fuss.
We Met At Army Cadets
his pant seams ironed wonky,
he’d break parade to get a girl’s number,
if the sergeant commanded
to drop and give twenty, it was him
who’d pushed for the punishment.
He liked my friend, her slicked bun
and baggy camo snug around her chest.
I became a mother, I’d forgotten him.
He messaged one night on Facebook:
just saw you on Ayres Road, you in the area?
His bedroom dimly lit by a mossy
fish tank, a sluggish guppy pacing its muck.
His father watching porn in the next room.
He pulled his pants down and revealed
his micropenis, his bravado bumping
against me. We were smooth dolls,
practiced with. I just lay there, confused
—why I didn’t say, dude, what’s the deal?
Afterwards, I went to my friend’s flat
and laughed. I couldn’t get over it,
how small it was, how sure he seemed
I hadn’t noticed. But of course, he had.
He’d chosen me to pretend with.
What would’ve happened if I had risen
from his mattress and stirred on him
like I did with the heel of my own foot
before I found that magazine under
my stepdad’s bed? A woman sliced in two
by the centrefold, wearing nothing
but trainers and tube socks.
I learned to leave something
to the imagination—the soles
of my feet, the sound of my voice.
Carson Wolfe
Carson Wolfe is a Mancunian poet and winner of New Writing North’s Debut Poetry Prize (2023). Their work has appeared with Rattle, The Rumpus, The North, The Common, and is forthcoming with POETRY and Best New Poets. They were longlisted in The Poetry Society’s National Competition (2023), and have received awards from The Aurora Poetry Prize, The Edward Thomas Fellowship, and Button Poetry. You can find them at www.carsonwolfe.co.uk.
