Featured Poet: Evan Nave

Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

I was born

in a pile of mirror

shards under a ladder

on Friday

the 13th honest

and said something

isn’t right

here and is it over

yet?

        There were old

testament prophets standing

on the ladder steps

maybe screwing

in a light bulb and telling

a joke about it. My new

born ideas were fluorescent

and tasted like

yeast and sour breast

milk.

          What is the name

                                              of this

man

        child?

one of the prophets yelled

and rent his clothes with ashy

fingers. My father and my father’s

father lay their hands on

my shoulders and said Jack

the ripper

                   Richard

the lion heart

                        and a used

car salesman but it’s all

in his head nothing

written in stone or any

thing.

Postmodern cherubim

sat on the ledge

of a dumpster and

laughed about the red

mud of identity and all

the nudity involved

with childbirth.

Mean

while my shriveled

everything was cold

and my mother sensed

it and swaddled

me in a big

mac wrapper she found

on the ground. In the moment

I understood at least

conceptually convenience

and I thought it smelled

like diarrhea.

Everyone saw my sneer

face and took it

wrong.

A high priest

looking man in

strapped sandals rushed

over grabbed a mirror

shard stooped

down and sliced

off my foreskin

tossed it over

his shoulder into

the dumpster while

the cherubim flew

back to the north

pole.

          Men take

what they are

given and pretend

to like it

til they die it’s like

being a rodeo

clown get it he said.

Circumcised and destitute

there was nothing left for me

to do but wait

out the sting

so I bled and baby

babbled a lamentation

if this is how it feels

to start how bad

will it hurt

to end?

            (Alley cats dry

humped to the existential cricket

chirp silence.)

The prophets over

heard me twisted

their beards whispered

together looked at

me sad and said

wanna hear

a dirty joke?

                       There’s no rest

                                                   you know

not even

on the sabbath.

To Calvary

Sunday school shoelaces

waxed in maple syrup

against the rug burn

if it rubs it

starts the fire in

the chafe. Melt into the cream

carpet puffed up pink in the palm lines.

One bunny ear hops in circles, dead drunk through the meadow

all the way home to strangle bunny

two with its hear listen close. Thou shalt

shout ‘til the red from the cheeks ripples ‘cross

cartoon soothe giggles animated presto lips

shout the tick tock upside the hush

puppies from Payless. Moses parted the sock seam

across the crushed toe cuticle, deaths drowned there in

the salt, in the plagues pumped to the ankles

tied up tight to choke the slip from the sweat hell

and high water rain

                                      reign

                                                go away

back into the cool between ice water

coos from mother

                                 goose

and her brood of tickle fingers

up the side stitches to the tongue

                                                             tied

pockets dropping tithe quarters.

Pay the devil. Cross the trickle into no man’s land

scribbled peach with crayon and scratched

crooked with the minivan bump.

Memories of Generational Anxiety

8ish

I am playing

baseball in a maroon

t-shirt. The white elastic

collar is overstretched and

itching my neck. I think

this collar droops

because I have too big a head.

There is something wrong

with my head.

3

I am in

the pediatric wing

of a hospital holding a stuffed

horse. My father has a six-pack

of 7Up cans on his lap. He says

you had surgery on your

ears. I think I can hear

that and how did I wake up

from that crocodile pit?

4

I am crying

from a cut

on my index finger holding

my grandfather’s pearl

handled razor blade

from the Philippines. I think

World War II has ruined

everything and I am

selfish.

9

I am reading

the Methodist hymnal in

a back row pew.

A woman with a rhino

plasty looks me in the eye

and I decide that there is beauty

in the world and her nose is

not it so I should throw up.

12

A plastic figurine of Pittsburgh

Penguins great Jaromir Jagr sits

on my father’s oak desk

shelf. I had my mother buy it

for him because the J and J

sounds felt good to me and I

thought dad would like it. We

are not a hockey family.

11

I am watching

the world’s

strongest man on television

in the family room.

My mother hollers something

down from the kitchen. I holler

something back up. She comes

down the staircase and says

I shouldn’t holler at her.

I should walk up to the kitchen

and speak at a normal volume.

She walks back up

the staircase and I think what

does Thomas Jefferson have

to do with any of this?

11ish

I am standing

in the staircase.

My parents have sent me

to my room and I am giving them

the finger and mouthing

the words fuck and

you. They can’t see

me. They watch

television and I worry

about the ten

commandments.

4

I am in

the backyard my father’s

friends are building a tree

house for me and my sister.

I crack my head

on a gas-powered generator

and think there is pain

in my head where

is dad?

14

I am hugged

against my aunt’s

breast. My grandfather has forgotten

how to play our favorite card

game and has given up

trying to remember. He starts

shuffling the cards and

mutters to himself there

will be blood my aunt says

don’t worry his mind is else

where. I say where.

She says in the war our

family’s minds are always

at war it seems. I think

is it in my veins my

mind to war worry and

we used to play

cards before all this.

With Weather Like This, Who Needs Prophecy

For Mom

Your permanent smelled

like Kip’s Burger French fries

on account of the umbilical cord being filled

with coleslaw. I heard you pipsqueak

from your love handles, the pinpoint

above your left hip, and merci beaucoup

for ice chips from a basement

bleached cafeteria fridge. Water

on the tongue numbed

the labor in the arches

of your feet. Thanks

for the name.

The doctor flipped a coin

for plug or outlet, electricity in

my crotch crackled like a Christmas

tree and when George Washington landed

face up I sprouted a man and choked

out purple. People in moustaches

cracked about college football and

wrapped me in a Midwestern

onesie made of cornhusks. Organic,

gluten-free garments still diaper rash.

You rubbed gluestick on

my ass cheeks and put me

back together again. All noses

against cheeks and promises

against neck skin. Breath gripping

the base of the skull and between

the shoulders. Still from the ice

chips cold. Support circle of busy

bodies bustling around my blood,

my blood.

Even with new eyes I stacked

the hospital floor tiling in columns

of eight. Rows of eight and outlined

the constructions with spittle

from my soft spot. Order,

order. Night Court played on the hospital

TV fuzzy with tax-paid static

and generic Sprite. You ate oyster

crackers and burped up the answers

to my questions: “Are the stacks straight

enough to keep us safe or are the rows

wish-washed in ammonia and sponge

bath? Should you have called me

out as Samson in spite of all this

hair?” Never mind, Delilah, your gypsy

jewels shone pretty in the wheelchair

chrome, and we rolled out in chariots

of amniotic fluid, baptized

into this war. 

© 2012 Evan Nave