for Sonny
If I was in love with you for no reason,
I would die in the road waiting for you
to scratch my head before school. I would have
too many tapeworms. So many
you could scratch their heads.
So many they would help you
on the bus because of all your crying.
A witness sees inside & says aloud.
If I was in love with you for one reason,
it would be the way you carry your cage
around. You look like a loaf of bread
with a life knifed into it. If I was in love
with you for money, I wouldn’t be me,
now would I? I would
be a hairy train—you could hear me
crying all the way to heaven.
You could hear me dying
all the way to loving how you let me
slobber on your face
like a decent sacrifice.
Meanwhile on the Moon
Over Mare Imbrium basin,
birds are bland, diamonds
with boiled wings, bullet
holes valued higher than our very
breath. Even here the downpours
come to party, leave with empty
lungs. We bob for bloodshot
eyes in buckets of buttermilk,
these our current incarnations.
Every year the fragments of worship
from centuries before finally arrive,
full of soft light, wave admiration.
We feed the world these words
& take the forms of frightened
horses like a dark glitch, drain
your language of love & leave
our bodies long enough to lick
your sightless lives once more.
Take a break from the news
We publish your favorite authors—even the ones you haven't read yet. Get new fiction, essays, and poetry delivered to your inbox.
YOUR INBOX IS LIT
Enjoy strange, diverting work from The Commuter on Mondays, absorbing fiction from Recommended Reading on Wednesdays, and a roundup of our best work of the week on Fridays. Personalize your subscription preferences here.
Sign up for our newsletter to get submission announcements and stay on top of our best work.
YOUR INBOX IS LIT
Enjoy strange, diverting work from The Commuter on Mondays, absorbing fiction from Recommended Reading on Wednesdays, and a roundup of our best work of the week on Fridays. Personalize your subscription preferences here.