Featured Poet: Katy Cousino

THE EVERYDAY

GIRDLEMOMMA & GIRDLEBABY
waddle thru Beaver Valley Mall w/Hot Topic bags &
Yankee Candle Pumple smells.
The female girdlebods walk in2 Lane Bryant.
“What Real Women Wear” is smeared on every hexagonal wall.
GIRDLEMOMMA & GIRDLEBABY arrive to their fav h8 spot.

      GIRDLEMOMMA: Last stop the girdlegirl store. We will sob
                                          & cut ourselves in pencil skirts.

The GirdleClerks activ8 behind the counter:
double-chins shake until they smile invitingly.

      GIRDLEBABY: I cry lard pellets—suck on crumbs for comfort.

GIRDLEBABY shoves her encased sausage
thigh into shorts she’ll never wear, causing Thickpussy
Imprint Protrusion. She stares at herself for a long time
as lardstreams flood her clothing; she is chunkier
now than before.

Outside of the dressing room GIRDLEMOMMA grunts.
She tightens her epidermis w/a spandex binder & moans
sweetly into her own ear.

      GIRDLEMOMMA: Constriction sweeter than sugar-blood.

Thin humanoids loiter at the storefront, look in with big eye
small hips, point at GIRDLEBABY, asking if she’s real.

      Humanoid #1: what is fat but has skin
      Humanoid #2: yellow bulbous goo
      Humanoid #1: I’m, like, not even real; twas written in wallblood

Suddenly GIRDLEBABY’s titcatcher is too tight;
the silkworm straitjacket squeezes her <3 so hard.
3 GirdleClerks swarm her, large scissor hands
snipping at GIRDLEBABY bodice. The silver slips.
Jabjow goes the <3.

GIRDLEMOMMA , noticing the screams of her baby-girdle,
leaks instinctual teetjuice from her succulence.

CREEPER  PEEPERS

GIRDLEBABY is under the spyderlace canopy, staring upward
w/grumble-guts. She sprawls across her bedding & knocks
4 of her lard poles together; they expand & bounce like Newton’s
ball-click cradle. Last night she dreamt of a vamp @ her window,
pledging male fang belly-suck. Her eyes roll back in2 the skull.

A happy crevice burrows across her cheeks; teeth are
barely visible: ground to gums.
GIRDLEBABY reaches into a craft bag
of writhing phalanges. She glues them to an old back-scratcher.

      GIRDLEBABY: I will now prepare the entrance.

               BABOOMBANG

There is a thump from the closet. Undeterred, however,
as her girdle begins to boil over,
GIRDLEBABY envisions the vamp.
She bids him nearer w/a pout.

      GIRDLEBABY, giggling: Oh, my blood is all stopped up!

Slowly, GIRDLEBABY drags the fingerstick
across her risen teets. Its long yellow nails pinch
& scrape her jello mounds. She watches in awe @
digital magik. Her blushed nubs tremble.

Costumed humanoids whisper inside the closet.
1 wears dark glasses & a distressed sk8r gurl dress
salvaged from Urban Outfitters. The other
is in a childhood leotard, also from Urban Outfitters.
Both wear bald caps 2 sizes 2 big.
The flesh flaps hinder their eardrums.

      Humanoid #1: what say you, lard cooch?
      Humanoid #2: how it gargles!
      Humanoid #1: my voyeurism is innocent, 4 the sake of research

The humanoids inch open the closet door; a sliver
of morning sun sneaks in2 their spy spot.
1 scribbles madly on stretched mole hide.

Fevering, GIRDLEBABY shoves the phalange stick down her girdle.
The widespread fabric compresses slowly as baby-girdle inhales;
bubbling moans liquify in her throats.
Inside the lard-constraint detachable fingers dig.
They swell w/forgotten liquid.
GIRDLEBABY spurts from every orifice
stiffening blood cum. The eyes seal shut.

      Humanoid #1: who sponsored this?
      Humanoid #2: I am the brittle cage of flesh
      Humanoid #1: those phalanges have no self respect!

SIGH OF THE HUMANOID

The humanoids enter the dilapidated hospital in a panic as per usual;
goldenrod graffiti covers every sickening wing. Wet blobs creep
slowly to the carpeted floor. The shouty humanoids dash 4 sanctuary,
feet sticking to girdle-bod goo. The blobs regenerate w/every plop.
Above, Venus of Willendorf drips brown.

Humanoid #1 & Humanoid #2 slam mutually into a room.
The ruckus erupts the tile floor in dust;
yellow clumps rerupture in all corners of the room.
Rust cracks on the equipment surrounding.
They waste no time.

First quasi-scientist//halfhuman presses the suction wand
in2 her naked abdomen; old slivers fester in pale skin.
She hums loudly w/the machine. The cannula wheezes,
sux on nothing.

Humanoid #2 is pumped w/vasoconstriction; the leftover serum
expired by prior yrs. Swaying in the glass wall reflection,
she wears an old gas mask coated in different spit.
Her gown is damp & she cannot see her eyes.

      Humanoid #1: All work & no play make the humanoid a dull girl.
      Humanoid #2: I’m all juiced up, sis; I can taste my skinny!
      Humanoid #1: We dance w/the devil in the pale moonlight.

The humanoids’ thin rib cages ache apart slowly,
bend 2 riveted flesh. They gasp 4 orgasm.
Vessels swim clear thru their skin.

GIRDLEBABY WRITES A POEM
ABOUT SELF-ACTUALIZATION

xX mY cOnFiNeD sUsTeNaNcE xX

Before I was girdled, I didn’t know my #’s,
but focusing now,
I feel maybe 5 vaginal deposits within me.
Momma tells me I could have
girdle-babes of my own some day,
40 in each spydersac.
She tells me that my thick liquid distinguishes
fart from fertility
& I am full of both.
My fleshular masses are
stopped ^ w/ moo moo mucus
cervical goo; there is no room for
food or another 8-legged monster
inside these fat sacs.

I don’t need no scrubs nor the rubbing procreation.
I need for meatus tube-feed:
different juice, the kind that creates
substantial volume in humanchunks.
Momma doesn’t know I swallow whole.

Katy Cousino is an MFA candidate at the University of Notre Dame. She facilitates writing workshops weekly with the young women at the Juvenile Justice Center of South Bend. She believes that poetry is a powerful tool for social justice.

© Copyright 2015 Katy Cousino

Featured Poet: Miguel Ángel Bustos | Featured Translator: Lucina Schell

OPEN SHADOW


Today I have sought
the birds in my chest.
Heavy trill,
hard fist
suspended from soul’s center.
Today I have defended myself
from the street and the tree,
from their wall of feathers and tongues.
Today I fear the crazed song
that rises from inside me.
Today I fear silence.
I want the flight of my birds
how I want you!
Until wing by wing,
shadow opened,
we kiss freely.


—from Heart of Outer Skin, 1959





LOOKING AT EACH OTHER WE COULD FORGET THE NUMBER


Maybe revolving over the city
the machines rebel.
The filing cabinets like flowers
open
quickly fanning out,
and corral man.
It may be that the wall of my house
suspends a bit its weight
and watches my sleeping body.
Hounded walking with the fugitives.
By the field and by the river,
at the hour that the sun takes the day laughing.
We could forget the number brothers.
Looking at each other.


—from Heart of Outer Skin, 1959





MY TONGUE


My tongue sinks
deep tremors in your body.
My tongue lives
skips of your idiom
in your throat.
My tongue flies
and cuts
beat of water
your belly.
My tongue ties
far away in your blood.
My tongue looks
and sees only one tongue.
And today winds of stone blow
and there are millions of mouths that seek
tongues to make hearts stand on end.
Tongues that inhabit the chest.
Tongues in vigil erect,
on the eyes on the brow.


—from Heart of Outer Skin, 1959





PILGRIMAGE TOWARD THE SUN


Night you joined fire in water on land transformed by the sky.

Where did your flame appear?
Cell and panel of glass captivate me.
Make in me a forest of total innocence where fury and love
       graze, beneath the still clarity of silence.
Who opened the air and separated my tranquil beatitude?
A god in the sea inspires his storm.
A god on land flaps the windows and his angel goes wandering.


—published in La Nación on March 7, 1971




ECCE HOMO


If it is already time to raise his Dominion,
make it
your width, your length, your absolute depth.
Break my heaven, fled sea, home of
fiends.
Ease my sun in motion to the air of your
arrogance           in the emptiness of your calm.
Tree of gods. Tempest of birds.
Tremor in temples of fear. An absent god
in the origin of god that
I pursue.
Same as children          similar to the savages
of death find your justice
in zeal             see the prayer of your first
angel                           your angel fallen in the
terror of dream.


—published in La Nación on January 16, 1972




MIGUEL ÁNGEL BUSTOS was a major poet of the Argentine Generation of 1960. His Visión de los hijos del mal, with a prologue by Leopoldo Marechal, won the Buenos Aires Municipal Prize for Poetry in 1968. Bustos became an early victim of the military dictatorship, which ushered in decades of censorship of his poetry. His collected poetry was republished in 2008, the first time it had appeared in print in more than thirty years. Bustos’s remains were identified in 2014 by forensic anthropologists.

LUCINA SCHELL is founding editor of readingintranslation.com, dedicated to publishing reviews of literature in translation written by translators. Her translations of Bustos appear in Ezra Translation Journal, the Bitter Oleander, and Drunken Boat and her literary reviews have been published in Ezra and Zoland Poetry.

Featured Poet: Paul Cunningham

from "The House of the Tree of Sores"
 

A kitchen: where bombs and explosions are constantly cooked up

where zombified Swedish Chef fits large and small hands

(a spoiling milk in the West) continually spills

onto Miss Misshandlade & Miss Misstanke

Nothing spills on Miss Indiana because her body is “normal”

Normal is a good thing, you should look more normal,

the mockmilk whispers.

Pour batter into prepared bowl

a bowl is a shed is a shedding

is a clean shed or a shed of fakes?

a should snusk a snusk shed?

identisk, translation’s tisk tisk

translation, needle in a höstack

a whole stack, a sales rack

a hate-stack, bombar dem

bombard them, feja or fejka?

Brush a grill gate with spring tension adjuster

Add 20 #7 x 7/8” flat-head screws

Add ¾ cup of decorative bolts

Preheat oven to 375’ F

Use a slotted spoon to churn headboard

Use a slotted spoon to mix the sweet

Add 2 side frames, Add 4 adjustable shelves

Add a layer of caramelized connection sleeve

melon, knocksharps the skull

kitchen offers a mallet, a gavel, a kavel

dough-rolling a skulle, dough-rolling a should

feja skola och fejka skola?

translation, a fruit contains a secret mjölk

clayed over by peel, inte gråta över spilld mjölk?

peel-removal; glöd-core; våld-core

suga sockret, suger socker

More boomashootns, the mockmilk whispers

puppetland, with its gun-shaped hand

home of damaged dream-appliances

microwave-safe, fits in the bowl of all sinks

puppetstringchoked sinkhole

sings a green song a salad mean song

veggie stalks tangled up in an armature wire

a stringy ooze out of mockmilk mouth utters

Copyright © 2014 Paul Cunningham

Featured Poet: Sarah Carson

The Twenty-Four Hour Grocery Store, Part I 

Ron Bowman got fired from the twenty-four hour grocery store for no-call-no-shows after his girlfriend had him arrested for trying to kill her with his Tupac chain. In a meeting with both produce managers, he’d been accused of carving swastikas into the card table in the smoking break room, though the smokers defended him vehemently, though Joe Fischer took full credit for it the night he quit, running off through the dimly lit parking lot with two cans of soup and a bottle of champagne. Later Ron and Joe smoked cigarillos with Matt from bottles beneath the black lights in their living room, Matt’s fingers still ripe with Diet Coke and Sprite and 42 varieties of beer. When Matt turned up dead in his grandmother’s doorway, Ron and Joe were miles away, passed out with their heads on each other’s shoulders, having signed a secret pact between them to never let a bitch get them down. 





The Twenty-Four Hour Grocery Store, Part II 

Maura was the manager on duty the night Bill got caught drinking and driving in the Coke van. We were sitting in her office, drawing pictures with the highlighters she kept in her top desk drawer while the Pepsi guys sat on the empty pallets in the drop trailer watching porn on their cell phones. Around eleven o'clock Bill came storming up action alley, took a 2 liter of Vault and threw it so hard against the floor that it bounced over the cereal racks and into the next aisle. The boys went with him to the parking lot where they all lit up cigarettes and spent a long time not making eye contact. Maura called for a floor machine from behind the locked door, seated beside me scratching at the incisions she'd made on her forearms during lunch. 





The Twenty-Four Hour Grocery Store, Part III 

His wife found out the week before Christmas, and so he dragged both of his daughters through the twenty-four hour grocery store in search of the cashier who was causing all of his problems, each little girl with a tiny hand wrapped around one of his index fingers, the bells their mother had tied to their snow boots a flurry of quiet jingling as they hurried down the soda aisle like late entrants in a three-legged race. In the front yard that night the cops told the grown-ups to scatter, but the cashier was sure she was the only one who’d listened. For months she'd find herself pulling up next to the payphone outside the Speedy Q off the highway, dialing their number and listening intently to the chatter in the background before someone hung up. 





If We Toast to the New World, 
We should toast to all its possibilities, 

to Srmad in the shop on the corner, 
his window full of knock-off Nikes 
and single cigarettes. 

This morning when we went to get the paper, 
two men were climbing out my neighbor’s window 
with her television in their arms. 

You can’t blame the factory for that, 

 like you can’t blame the Generals 
for giving up in the playoffs 
when the stands were empty 
and their paychecks had been bouncing for months. 




© Copyright 2014 Sarah Carson

Featured Poet: Rachel Burns

a singular warning
 

I.
 
now with childish shivering
all that i know. becoming
a vessel to pass. my
handwriting's gone to
shit, like You prophesized.
& im fantastically tired
from current depletions. being
this happy in counterpart
brings an overcoming
sadness i cannot place of
produce into sustainable energy
what do you do?
with your morning?
 


II.
 
on having a baby
         your house will seem
         like a cemetery after.
it already is one
with mindless response, depth
marvels at the spectrum, lay
in finite arms for eternity,
comfortable & deaf
slowly decomposing
the capacity of mythology.
 


III.
 
last night i dreamt of shopping
carts & drowing surrounded by
scented candles, stripped candy
& decency.
i woke up at 11:49 a.m.
weighed 109 pounds
it was very cold outside
& october.
 


IV.

factual events
are bleak while being
individually
un-ordinary, various
levels of spectacular
pathetic.
-i have started biting my
-nails. this is
-common, but a unique
-attempt at self-nurture

         the earth scratches
         it's ear & falls
         asleep before
         2 a.m.
         regularly.
 


V.

when we fucked
last night,
my vision turned
into oceanic movements.
 


VI.

my previous fever sought
arithmetic in historic housing
it has a balcony, which it is
currently sitting on, drinking
coffee & smoking. the woman below is
on the phone, "the topic is
addiction, that's right up my
alley"
the weather is mist
rain & smooth light in
direct irony with
reds & yellows
if i wasn't so indecisive
i wouldn't be so passionate
 


VII.

i've got another fever
with similar
reds & oranges
tinted with i
want to travel in
silence. periodically
checking my reflexes & heart rate
the ash tray is full
& it's very silent
now, mostly
brown & damp
i ask for a diagnosis to
carry before
apologizing repeatedly.
apologize.
apologize.
apologize.
 


VIII.

my Fever has become a
contagion. spilling

over dishes & single
spoons. where have the insects
gone? where has the temperature &
conclusiveness & remedy, scholars
cleanliness, methylphenidate,
thirst text glass, pine trees, recklessness
morgue, anxiety, wonder, sex,
cheese, queen sheets, subtleness, curiosity,
thread & cardiovascular endurance & trinkets gone?




Crustpunk
 

i fell obsessed with
the movement of a name
forgetting the nightly
apparitions demand for
study a grain in my side the
cyphers jump to me & me
alone, i am speaking as the
real Maria programmed to riot
in orange wings, orange chests, red
marbles, lineless rituals, M-dance the
dancers spiral down. i feel alone
at this hour. the post office is
closed & you lost your dog, it
was 7 a.m. once, then i was here
unable to break the glass as
Maria in fear of
developmental obsession.
 
hello this is my banana
phone yellow paint fetish.
my banana phone is the cypher
regrettably so, it can be
whatever it wants to be.
i broke my knee in boston
with multiple eyes for introversion
siphon my marble pillars left behind
all the court sleeps as sleeping lovers
drawn on bodies who catch me atop
a gravel pile dissipating hieroglyphs for attention.




latent middle child
 

my brother flicks my cigarette filter
retrieves it, flicks it again, asks to be
on the front page of the paper,
is the secondary funeral location
pager friendly? will my pager get a sig?
will there be refreshments.
 
alligators go into a state
of hypnosis when you flip them
over like sharks. i'm having
nightmares about a light above
my jaw, meadows with clear fire.
 
dolphins rape fourteen people a
year, there is a support group
in florida. my brother tries to
hit a goose with a chunk of concrete
hey flipper, let me get a piece of that
when we discuss immortality it
becomes unclear which
brother i am dreaming for.




The First Fall Evening as Citizens
 

i'm sorry i take your pulse
in the morning, conversation is short
& expensive.




keep finding new animals
 

this craft held a land
mine possessed
mathematically pleasing
features as the only
onlooker sucking on
checker pieces
  i'm talking in cyphers again
  who gave me this pen, this fetish?
  this is not a cypher for
     clay women's walls
     sleepy hellos to a tiny chemist dog,
       you are well,
       chaquita.
       delight with bleached feathers.
why are you eating the game pieces to spite the patrons

                             oh rachel, your head is
                             falling into the ice again.
                             are you living as an ox?
                             & disposing of pregnancies?
this is not a cypher for all strange birds
throug saturn fog with no fear of
rock slides or heat. you held me
in your sleep last night & your breath
did not change. i hoped you were
asleep, i want to keep saturn for
myself. i held this secrecy
before departing in soft sweaters,
inquiries of knowledge, capturing
evidence with drug store cameras
social media updates. i am done
with urban cyphers, billboards. i am nothing
like the Cities in immortality
 
i was going to rob a
homeless woman for
liberal guilt taking instead
her scrolling through her
apple iphone five
she became a beggar
once more, my yellow paint
fetish did not survive the cold.
i washed my face in boston.
an immortal beggar with aesthetics but
it's not ohio or new jersey or florida, i'll

refrain from speaking a cypher
i love you without deflective body
language & these practices
ruined our status, made of necrophilia
impulses. our previous
cyphers share a twin bed in boston
with saturn on the sheets
& the sexual zeal aches, with
shoulders & the poetry like
a child maturing sexually in forced manner.




© 2013 Rachel Burns

Featured Poet: Ji Yoon Lee

-->

Pomposity is my favorite city

But my god didn’t like my Pomposity

& now it’s a discontinued product

& now it’s a sad old song

& now it’s i’m sorry ma’am we don’t carry that model any more

w/ brimstone and fire

w/ limestone and salt

w/ teardrop diamonds

but w/ rhinestones

now w/ rhinestones

Pomposity is my favorite city

&Pompeii is my favorite peiwei

Proletariat maybe dead but my Pomposity will live on

w/ its legacy of never-decaying brown sauce

w/ its cheap liquor in plastic cups

w/ their youngsters forever frustrated

w/ their oldsters no longer longing

4 here is nothing but furious

4 there is nothing but weather forecast

4 there is nothing but frustration

4 there is nothing but four of us

Pomposity is my favorite city

& Bombay is my favorite sapphire

Pilgrims maybe dead but my Pomposity will live on

w/ india that is not india

w/ my gin and tonic weak on gin

w/ my plastic cups made of recyclables

w/ my frustrations made of discontinued products

my needs

O my needs

Pomposity is my favorite city

& Sodom is my favorite flavored condom

Chivalry maybe dead 

but my condominium is designed for my needs

& keeps me satisfied & in need

& in need

& in need

So so long panic attacks at night

So long my dissatisfactions

So long my customer queries

Here’s to my metropolitan Pomposity

where sewers clog & my throat mottled

& my refreshing cuppa coffee & my maximum hydration mineral water

that don’t wash down anything but buy one get one free came with some clean window smashing & fresh curb biting that almost were satisfactory& that smashing ad campaign against the window that doesn’t tell me anything but is still smashing & colorful & exciting & enticing & saves my life in a way that makes me vomit in my trenchcoat pocket dripping into your french roast and i am so sorry.

*

are yr beans well roasted

is yr coconut water satisfactory

is yr egg sandwich delish

does anybody say delish any more

do people say smashing any more

can I smash yr teeth a little more

& break into your throat a little more

*

coconut water is so in

but you are just so out

in a way that makes me sob

into my trench collar

& do anybody say fad around here anymore

should my mottled voice care

should my muddled poem care

IMMA POMPOSITY

imma stuff my pocket with paper napkins so i can use them later

to stuff your mouth & throat& nostril & you have to cry through your deaddead eyes against your will or body function that is not ok but Just do it

*

imma stuff my pocket with plastic knives so I can use them later

to stuff your mouth & throat & cunt & you have to bleed through your deaddead eyes against your will or body function that is not ok but oh fingerlicking good

*

imma stuff you like a thanksgiving turkey

but do i really care

should i really care

-->

© Copyright 2012 Jiyoon Lee

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