our pharmacist
and a young father.
We pretended the spirit was
heart failure,
stroke,
alcohol.
But we knew better.
Our bodies recognized
the taste
of this spirit’s bitter breath;
our bones itched
as he scraped
at our cornerstones.
People gathered in the streets,
just to cry.
Air too thick to—
We’re not there.
Instead, at school, miles away.
A friend from home messaged us:
I feel like electricity is surging through the air.
My mother calls:
The Island can’t handle
another tragedy this year.
We’re all gone, but the spirit
demanded intercessions anyway:
tears thick as—
We mourned that day like doom,
like 9/11 or JFK.
Did the town fathers meet
to ask of each other
what happened?
Did they sense the spirit
in the thick air—?
Did they put away
the gavel,
the bible,
and call on the old gods instead,
buried for centuries in granite tombs?
Did the spirit sit among them
listening to his trial?
Or did he pass beyond,
going first through your home,
leaving
that stained fray of linoleum,
that creak in the stair,
that whimper from your sleeping brother?
We still speak of it.
Patriotism
They came to make a map
of my bedroom.
Two men, bearded, solemn,
with rolled up drafting paper
and thick black markers.
“You can stay seated on the bed”
one told me, carefully sidestepping
a pile of my laundry.
Both pulled out tape measures;
they measured everything:
the average width of my books,
the circumference of the bare lightbulb
jutting from the wall,
even the width between my feet,
toes kneading the blue carpet.
Then they set about drawing,
boxes and squiggles abstracting
the solids of my life,
turning the djembe I carried
from Uganda
into a circle,
the windows etched exes on the wall.
They used a labeling language
I could not discern.
I had to pee,
but one told me if I left,
they would have to start
all over again.
Finally, hours later,
they put the markers down,
rolled up their papers,
and shook my hand.
They said the drawings
would go to the Library of Congress
and be indexed with
the rest of my rooms.
They called me a patriot,
a citizen of the highest regard.
Then they left,
and their footprints
faded into the abstract square
of my carpet,
labeled ‘F7’ in the secret manual
all these men carry.
Peacetime
I.
Four men appeared
from the war.
“Where should we meet?”
they asked.
“You will come to me
in a long, thin room,”
I responded,
thinking of the hallway
in the Rotary.
“Will our mothers be there?”
they asked.
“No, they died, each,
of heart failure,
when they heard the news.”
II.
A man in Maine
has been beating a drum
continuously
for four years.
He says it is the heartbeat
of the Earth.
He has disciples who take turns
on the drum
in four hour shifts.
He is squandering
his inheritance.
I hear they may move
to a smaller house.
I wonder how they will drum
in the car;
if they go over a bump,
and the rhythm is interrupted,
will the Earth wink out of existence?
They must have
a contingency plan.
The End of His days
And every ozone sundown burned a braver creation
—Christian Wiman
Revelations settles
on the shoulders
of the blooming congregation.
Little eyes expecting
endings, wondering
at my cassock, at my
collar. Fear,
dear hearts,
in their little eyes.
For fear of what?
I let my brain
glide noiselessly
through the waterveins
of this bleeding Earth.
There is, hidden in smog,
destruction; fires
in homes of sand and stone
gut the lonely
mothers;
wives ask
another god
for his tongue
back. I rake
my fingers
through my brain,
explaining how a discarded
Book is alive,
blood-spilled and hand
prints all over the margins.
Man’s thoughts smolder
of creation, embryos
swimming through rivers
of caution-tape into
a mother’s waiting delta.
God turns bright red
and America’s Lazarus, dead again,
(he was Kennedy,
he was Lincoln)
pretends
that his infinite
devotion to the notion
of one nation,
under God,
can raise him up.
My boat is drifting
through dusk.
My lambs are waiting
for slaughter,
for new life.
I ask
the third grader
what God wants
us to confess.
She, blest, imparts
intimately a
wisdom far beyond
her years.
I hear angels sing
praises: her God is near-
the end of His days.
A. Sgroi
Sore Soles
Dark are the clouds above the dancer’s head—
Wilting are the tulips in their backyard beds.
Biting is the breeze that whispers at her back—
Forgotten are the books that she pushed into a stack.
Ruined are her stockings, with a run at both the knees—
Aching is her back and the bottoms of her feet.
Narrow, long, and winding is the road she walks—
Alone is the girl inside the music box.
Exsanguination
By the time I broke his heart
Mine had already begun to crumble.
Doubt came knocking,
Erosion spread.
There was now geological proof,
A history in the dust.
His heart suffered a swift, sharp slice
That bled quickly, and with fury.
Exsanguination of the soul.
Mine had fallen prey to a quiet disease.
A sickness, slow to show the symptoms.
It crept in, infecting every kiss and conversation.
Debilitation from deep within.
I lied to myself and to him.
I lied to my skin and to my hands.
I killed the animal that we were
And its blood dripped from my fingers.
Roadkill that we politely halved
And strapped to each other’s backs,
Agreeing to share the stench.
We stretched and dried the skin,
Dumped the innards in the river to wash away.
The last task we did together.
Our heartbreak, in its collective sense
Will wash up on some other beach,
But the blood still stains my hands.
Three summers have come and gone,
And no amount of scrubbing
Can rinse my skin of the damage I’ve done.
I still smell it when I close my eyes.
By the time I broke his heart,
Mine was deeply flawed at its core.
Cracks ran through it from end to end.
There is no fixing a flaw like that.
Reprisal
my sister took her name back
from inside his mouth where he was keeping it.
it perched on his tongue far too long.
a foolish place to keep a name,
a room whose door will not remain closed.
my sister took her name back
from under his bed where he kicked it,
left to collect dust until he wanted it again.
a foolish place to keep a name,
a space without walls to speak of.
my sister took her name back
when he left it on the train
and only realized the error
when turning out his pockets for the wash.
anonymity is a sweet, fresh breath.
he will know her not a moment longer.
Autumn, buried
Brooklyn is still sleeping
Early morning in October.
Wide awake and weeping
We are solemn, shattered, sober.
What happened so few hours ago
Is etched into our skin.
Too late to tell the artist ‘no’,
Tattoo ink sinking in.
Brooklyn’s still asleep
As we avoid each other’s eyes.
Sunlight starts to creep
As we prepare to say goodbye.
Goodbye to the love and goodbye to the friend.
Goodbye to the fall and the never-again.
Depths
You lead me to a place where the mud is deep
And no one can see us.
Leaves become sieves to the sun and its waning warmth.
For miles, we creep along
And pick up rocks, and feathers.
Remnants of the land we walk.
We traipse like this as the light winds away.
The fog within the forest depths is just that: deep.
The air drips with sound atop a bed of silence.
We say things we otherwise wouldn’t,
We see things we otherwise couldn’t.
There is nothing to be done,
No one calling our names.
The scent of pine saturates our noses
And rests behind our eyes.
Mine share their color with the bottomless dirt
And the grass that flecks the surface.
Yours are like the storm clouds we don’t think will reach us—
—They do, and we are soaked.
Cotton clings, hanging on for dear life.
We reject its advances and peel off our layers,
Thinning suddenly under patches of moonlight.
I am cold and you are chilly. I am drained and you are weary.
We walk until we reach the lean-to,
A relic of our childhoods surviving well beyond its years.
A patch of dry wood awaits—
—We think it somewhat miraculous.
Just enough room for both of our bodies and both of our souls.
By morning, the damp is lifting.
It threatens to return and we do not doubt it.
I want to grab hold of these hours
And put them in a pocket.
The one within my chest,
Where everything I stow inside is doomed to rot forever.
The decay will take as long as my life.
Our clothes have almost dried,
Just as before, only now
They hold the scent of rain.
Everything is different, yet we are both the same.
Miguel Coronado
Body-Poem
i.
my body is a poem
it sings, reverberating as a tuning fork
reverb vibrates melodic
as a buzzing swarm
of lightning bugs;
as in a thunderstorm,
the bugs and frogs come out
to make the world
a damp and sticky place
for us.
ii.
my body is a poem
about my city in the rain, covered in fog
covered just like a child
under a great mountain
of blankets, white as death;
how it roared
& crept up,
covering
my shoulders
in its fog.
iii.
my body is a poem
that had trouble sleeping last night, & woke up
startled by the rustling of bells
& the subtle click
of a door closing;
the way a funeral proceeds,
culminating in the closing
of the earth, the subtle
clink of a shovel
finishing.
Adventures of a Lost Soul
When I was young,
I fashioned a small halo out of hollow stars,
Insect husks and the love of my grandfather
In the rustic shadows of farms
I explored in search of a reason,
Any reason at all to continue exploring
Once,
I led an inquisition in my
Grandfather’s backyard
Against an insect insurgency
Swatting mosquitos in droves
& capturing buzzing bee drones
& chasing centipedes away
& banging on wooden nests
& watching the clover mites
bleed out in a frenzied splatter
of bright
red—
I ran away—
Afraid.
Today, I know
Clover mites are harmless little bloodbugs,
And I’ve long since quit the inquisition,
But I sti
ll explore for the same reasons:
The incentive to keep exploring;
& so I wear my halo like a badge
& set on out in search of home,
The place I lost, so long ago,
When I left those forsaken farms.
The Kiosk
red light kisses a neon tavern;
a block away, a bum ambles into the night
his body silhouetted hungry red, a ghost.
he rolls a shopping cart,
filled beyond the brim
with plastic
(transparent
bones)
he’ll cash them all in
for coins—he’ll recycle his life
at a kiosk.
The Sound of Distant Explosions
I am sound
emitting
as rocketfire—
distance
is drowned out
by a bonfire
in the night,
the hungry city
pulls the stars down
to earth with
skyscraping
razor-sharp
desperation
I eat sound
& sleep sound,
quietly fortifying
my body-fortress
to perfection; this vessel
for my mind and spirit.
Tempus Fugit
i.
in time, you will see
the glowing shell of day shed
into the evening.
(two lovers stroll along an esplanade,
hand in hand in secret hand of another
secret lover, the moon, peeking out
from a curtain of grey clouds.)
ii.
in time, you will know
how doors unfold into death,
how curtains cartwheel
light into a room
but also darkness—and why
windows wane away.
(farther down along the river,
an old man falls in love
with the coy moon—
he gazes politely, not wanting
to strip apart her innocence.)
iii.
in time, you will be
gone as memory in a
holocaust of thought.
(a slow cloud obscures thought,
and the old man, weary of love,
bows his head ever so slightly