Still Life With Absolution
by Dean Rader

Forgive my silence.
Forgive the middle parts, the lost ones.
Forgive the times I slept. I am sleeping now. Forgive me all the dreams.
Forgive the times I powered up a device instead of remembering.
Forgive what little remembering I’ve done.
Forgive my blindness; seeing
I have not thought nearly enough about those about to die. For this I ask forgiveness.
I have not believed enough in feet on the ground. I have not believed enough in grounds. For this I ask forgiveness.
I once believed there was more than there is now. I no longer do. For that I ask forgiveness.
I sometimes think of the dead walking through an empty field wearing coats. I imagine fog and a sky like pumice. For that I do not deserve forgiveness.
Forgive me the times, many, in the car alone, I do not think of ________.
Forgive me the times, many, when I am the only one awake in the house and I do not think of any heart but my own.
Forgive me for not knowing more of my heart.
For the times I have thought about you strapped to a chair in front of a plate of bones, I now ask forgiveness.
For the times I have wondered if things might be better if there was more ________, I ask forgiveness.
For the times I have neither sought nor wanted forgiveness, I remain ambivalent about forgiveness.
For the times I wanted the night sky on my skin alone I ask forgiveness.
For the times in the future when I should ask for forgiveness, I ask in advance for what I will not seek.
For the lies, many, I will tell my sons, I may or may not ask forgiveness.
When I speak to you next, will it be to ask for your forgiveness?
When the next shot is fired and I think about Kara Walker or my sons sleeping in the next room or Michael Kiwanuka or how glad it was not fired at my wife, am I to be forgiven?
When I began this poem, I thought it would mean something. For that I ask forgiveness.
Sometimes I feel as though hundreds of tiny birds live in my fingers. Forgive my vanity.
For the times I have not forgiven you, many, I ask forgiveness.
I have no idea if there is blood on my hands, for that I also seek forgiveness.
For the truths I will reluctantly tell my sons, many, I may or may not ask forgiveness.
For my mouth of snow I ask forgiveness.
What is too much sorrow? I may have it. Do I ask forgiveness?
What is the right amount of selflessness? I do not have it. Do I ask forgiveness?
What is the answer to the question have you lived? I do not know. Do I ask forgiveness?
People are being shot in the street in the fields in prison. I am thinking very hard about them but also about my league championship basketball game on Wednesday. Do I ask forgiveness?
The world is a sponge of suffering, and yet, by comparison I am spared. Do I ask forgiveness?
My son who brought home two small guns he made in woodworking class is 10. Who do we forgive?
Men are hanging by their necks under bridges in Mexico. Who do we forgive?
My son told me last night he is sometimes scared of the homeless men we see near our bakery. Who do we forgive?
I believe if something happens to my sons I will not forgive? Shall I be forgiven?
There are things I will not name here for which I should seek forgiveness. Shall I be forgiven?
I have lied to the people I love the most. To you. I will do this again. Shall I be forgiven?
It is very likely I would rather you die than me. For this, I do not ask for forgiveness.

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Photograph
by Nur Turkmani

Friends on grass, toes itching.
It is warm and Sunday.
They’ve known each other for years,
so what is unsaid is still captured.
Their mouths half-open, one of them asks,
Why are we still here?
To laugh, another says.
That is the general agreement
on that afternoon
where the sea is beastly blue.
You can’t see in the picture but flies buzz.
Ants crawl and a white butterfly flaps
above shoulders, a great omen.
Clouds like birds. Birds like wind.
This city forces a love of disappearing things:
all these fences and wires,
rubber trees replaced with parking lots.
Even the birds will soon flock elsewhere.
But before they share fruits and fish,
and a frame. This sweet breath.
It is September and they want to stay alive.

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Ode to the Hoarders
by xochi quetzali cartland

            “The library will endure; it is the universe.”
             —Jorge Luis Borges

Adoring architects,
Sculpting cities of newspapers
& burnt out bulbs.
Rome wasn’t built in a day,
It was years of collected dreams.
& you look for God in every
Thing. Sure that one of these days,
He’ll be at the bottom of a hefty bag
With the fish bones & milk cartons. Another
Ordinary love, cluttered & disposed
Of—don’t you want to be brave?
Enough to see it all as worth saving?

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Logic
by Bob Hicok

When someone says they're all ears, I know they're not
without looking, I'm a detective like that, but imagine
if this someone who is all ears also said, I love you
with all my heart, they'd really be saying, I love you
with all my ears, which — setting aside the dilemma
of how an ear could say any of this — would be wonderful,
a love of one hundred percent listening, at least
on paper, until you start living that love, when like
twelve minutes in, or a month, a year, tops,
you'd be tired of the sound of your voice and want
at least a few of the ears to be mouths, or tongues,
mouths and tongues, since one without the other
is harder to imagine than rain without sky or peanut butter
without spaghetti right next to it in the cupboard.
My goal is to be thirty four percent ears, zero percent
fists, thirteen percent hydrogen, six percent sass,
twenty two percent "tell me more," and seventeen percent
a man who helps war statues climb down
from their pedestals and walk to the nearest swing set
or sea, whichever they want when I convince them
there's a better way to live. How? That's
a good question. You must be twelve percent
scientific method, which is terrific. I was thinking
if we all wore t-shirts that read, Roses Are Red
and Violence Is Stupid, it would change nothing,
but that sartorial unity might be the spark
that brings us together around the vulnerability
of flowers, which is not that different
from the vulnerability of otters, which is a cousin
to the shyness of your shadow, which reminds me
how easy it is to break a person into halves,
or quarters, which sounds like I'm making change,
doesn't it, rather than begging for it.

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You Cannot Stop Me
by Kevin Chesser

I am making soup and I am stirring my soup with a bone. I can’t tell you where the bone came from. That’s classified information.

If you want me to stop stirring my soup with a bone, you better give me three good reasons and fast.

Because the soup’s almost done.

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I Want To Stop Wasting Time Thinking About Wasted Time
by Kelly Grace Thomas

Always in such a rush to hurry up and live.
Scribble joy off my To-Do list. How American
to want it all and still say more. Don’t I have
every ounce I thirsted for: quiet water, endless
ink, a little love on both sides of the bed.
I want to be less scared and more
salt water. To taste the wind
and never beg it to stay.

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Love Story of Beginning and End
by Kaylee Young-Eun Jeong

I had a boyfriend who once told me
it's more humane to shoot and eat deer,
showing me a video about the inevitability
of their prolonged starvation in the wild:
If I were a deer, he said—
I thought this only happened
in movies, but he was the first person I ever saw
pound the floor with his fists
when he sobbed, and begged me not to go.
My friend once told me
the story of the father of a friend who one day
went to Brazil on business forever
and not only that, but found it in him
to call his wife, and tell her so:
I've found a new woman; I'm never coming back
or something to that effect, as my friend relayed it
to me, and I remember wondering how else
it could have gone. What he could have done
differently. What he should have.
For some reason I'll never know, my mother
loved to tell anyone who would listen the story
of my piano teacher's wife, who one day
went for a hike alone
and had a stroke. Though she was healthy,
my mother would quickly clarify,
and it was not a question
of health, but a faulty vein inside of her
she never could have known. And though
my mother told it like a cautionary tale,
how could it have been, unless the moral of
the story was what Rilke said about how the end
grows inside of you like a fruit.
I used to think this was true. That people
wore their end on them, unknowable
as skin, and as visible, and then I sat on his couch
for the last time, the couch of that heroic
hunter of dying deer, and thought how
there was a beginning to this,
though I couldn't find it
and I would have to get off
that couch and go home one way
or another, and that staring at his hands
I could not imagine how.
After I walked through his door
for the last time, he left the city
and it was no longer his door. And did it start
when we met? In the car, when I was a child,
my mother would often cry in the driver's seat
and ask God why he had punished her
with me, and when I began
to cry, too, the first time it happened,
she turned and asked me what I was
crying for and I remember thinking earlier that day
we had laid on the kitchen floor
together, drawing pictures on butcher paper,
and I had messed up while drawing
our house and the more I tried
to fix it it only got worse
until eventually to keep me
from tears of frustration my mother took a red crayon
and drawing flames over it said look
now it's just a fire and as we sat there
on that couch I remembered
he did not only hunt deer, that boy,
he also loved watching birds, and would show me
videos of birds of prey moving in for the kill
in slow motion, making the osprey's sudden
plunge into water suddenly possible,
every beat of the wing, every drop of water
clarified to a moment of its own
and as he kept asking me what happened I thought
how I wanted the answer, too.

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Girl / Guāi 乖
by Jenny Qi

In Lisbon I bought boba from a girl who looked twelve, maybe  
a small fifteen. We speak Mandarin and I hear her obedience.

‍乖 we praise the child who does what she is told / works          
the family business / fills out forms her parents can’t read /
earns her keep / makes herself useful / dutiful / demure.  

‍乖 we praise the child who follows rules / anticipates needs /
keeps quiet / keeps to herself / keeps secrets / keeps unseen
and unheard / respectful / well-behaved / docile / obedient.

‍Google translates 乖 to “good.”
Only an obedient daughter is good.

My father said I was a bad daughter
when I did not obey absolutely.

‍The girl in the boba shop is maybe still good / a pleasure            
to have in class / does what’s expected / doesn't ask why /                    
feels indebted to her parents for keeping her alive.

‍乖 we praise the girl who will make a good wife / good
daughter / good carer / good maid / good server / good
worker / good breeder / good ant / good lamb / good corpse.

‍乖 we praise the woman who lets everyone else eat first /
supports her husband / supports her child / supports her parents / supports her
in-laws / saves nothing for herself.  

‍In high school I asked my mother why she was deferential        
to an old man who insulted her / why she sent money to her
brothers / why she felt guilty / why she did not leave.  

‍I don’t remember her answer or if she was silent.
乖 we praise a woman who is silent.
乖 we praise a woman who complies.  

A dead woman is silent.
Is a dead woman good?

乖 I was praised only
when I did something I did not want to.  
Obedience is to bury yourself.

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First published in ONLY POEMS.

I Was A Superhero
by Basman Aldirawi

Today, I fantasized 
I was a superhero. 
And yes, before you ask,
I wore my underwear 
over my pants. 

My name was not Basman
but BASMAN in shiny letters.
My weapon? Pen and notebook!
My superpower? Truth!

I practiced facing Sabra, 
that fancier, fitter, whiter
Israeli superhero, so much better
in the eyes of the world.

Now, we stand face to face.
I have the strongest weapon!
I begin to speak—bold, clear— 
yet suddenly her rocket
obliterates my voice.

And I am dying.

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First published in ONLY POEMS.

Latching
by Arah Ko

When I was born, I did not feed
for three days. My mother’s nipples swollen
with mastitis, too thick to latch
onto, swallow around. The nurse hissed the worst case
I’ve ever seen as she milked her breasts
on the living room floor. I cried,
ravenous. How did I know to be hungry?
I, who had never eaten.

I heard a kitten weaned
too early will keep suckling her whole
life, mouth searching blankets, elbows, strangers,
for what she needs. My condition was not caused
by the lack of milk, but its abundance. Bud
too rich to latch. This is my whole life's
contradiction: to be surrounded by plenty,
and still starve.

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Spectacle
by Andrea Cohen

On sad days we'd go
to the planetarium.

We'd put on that
helmet of stars

and hardly anything
falling could hurt us.

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In the Dream of Money
by Henry Israeli

there is no window
that has not been filled
with cold hard bills
stacked up like bricks
to block out the sun.
In the dream of money
a woman gives birth
to a baby that cries
and cries until filled
with spoonful after
spoonful of coins.
In the dream of money
someone says, capitalism
is in our blood, and,
indeed the ground below
us is stained with money.
In the dream of money
money falls from clouds
but burns to ash before
hands lifted skyward
in prayer can reach them.
In the dream of money
all prayers start and end
with money, and the newly
converted fall to the floor
and writhe until they’re
covered in a blanket
of stitched together bills.
In the dream of money
we’re told that everyone’s
a winner before our
shirts are stuffed with
cash, our pants stuffed
with money, all of us hoisted
up like scarecrows in a field
of scarecrows, all of us
lifted onto our own posts,
coming apart in the wind.

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With Great Fanfare I Present You the Key to the City and This Is What Happens
by Amorak Huey

apparently my body is a city
like all cities it was once new and small and made sense
like all cities it evolved over the ages

sprawl and addition
accumulation of choices that made sense at the time

a history’s worth of whispers

deep inside the city are cobblestones
archways
narrow alleys
I’m difficult to navigate

yet you stride with great confidence  
as though you’ve been here before
know exactly where you’re going

at the center of the city a park
in that greenspace a tree
ancient black trunk
spider-limb and silhouette

the tree bears a single piece of ripe fruit
the fruit is my heart

do not pick it I say
but you say picking fruit keeps the tree healthy

you slice it into thirds
drizzle each slice with honey

one for the birds you say

one for you to carry on your journey home

you hand the last slice to me
say eat and I do

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You Got Where You Were Going
by Aimee Wai

You asked me earlier, is this all there is? I don’t know. I want for something deeply too—like it’s something physical. I keep finding myself

walking into rooms. The way you do when you need something from it. But when I arrive, I can’t remember why I’m there or what I needed. So, I turn around

and go back to where I started. Sometimes it helps and other times it doesn’t. Either way, I’m going back and forth and wearing down the carpet. I can’t be sure

what’s distracting me—the lighting in the space or the blankness of my intentions. All I know is I’m leaving empty-handed

or holding things I didn’t come for. I don’t remember what I need, I don’t remember anything. I know

I don’t want to leave the house without it. Please, don’t let me leave the house without it.

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Night Rain
by Todd Dillard

Like the first gods 
emerging from the surf
the dogwoods shed 
droplets of light.

And the puddles—they're silver 
keys on the clarinet of our street.

Why should we close the windows
the way we close our minds
to thoughts of death. 

Let this little dark, 
this humble wet 
shiver into our room. 

Without silence 
there is no music. 

Let the silence 
come. 

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Infanticide in Foxes
by Tom Snarsky

Bye heart,
old ticking

thing. Pond
overflow

runs behind
the trees, naked

as the day
they were

taken for
born. A cub,

handled too
roughly &

carried by
his spine, dies

+ is buried
under wool

tangles, to be
dug up again

in a few hours
for food (the 4

weeks before
that

spent
below ground,
a little
Gethsemane

of learning
to see).

The good
isn’t something

we can trust
or know,

stress of the
first-time

mother,
hiding

in a barn
from snow

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diario verano | chronicle 
by Jonathan Chan

          with compliments to Spencer Reece

30th May 2025 

Lorca, i have forgotten how the unending 
sun and sprawling hills make soft
an ivory-hard head and heart, 
the sweltering embrace of summer 
in full, unrelenting brightness.
palm trees line the road to the 
beach, vacationers in floating 
hotels on the sea beyond the castle. 
the fields and farmlands roll by,
vast acreage and the neatness,
the nearness of symmetric olive groves.
the tracks and the trains shake,
snaking across the mountainside. 
the filter of sun is captured 
in the expanding aperture of film. 
Lorca, in this delicious, enveloping heat 
i remembered the eternal summer 
of a spotted mind. 

‍

31st May 2025

Lorca, i awoke with a tightness
in my calves and tremor in my spine.
i have been thinking of how visitation 
follows a miracle. the sensuous clime
makes light of the shame of loose 
bodies and limbs. sweat is perfectly
adequate and natural to the days 
of protracted sunset. cobblestones
make for wobbling steps and curved
knees. i know not where the heat
recedes in the shade. orange trees
stand as the city winds around them.
today, vaqueros sat mounted 
on the backs of their horses, lining
the roads drinking coffee in grey 
and white suits. dancers sashayed
down the streets in flamenco dresses
of black, red, and blue. the light sapped
the vapours from our breath over plates
of jamón, berenjenas, and camarones.
the afternoon stretched into the evening.
tomorrow, Lorca, we celebrate a sacred 
mystery, how languorous, Lorca, 
these hours. 

‍

1st June 2025 

for Crystal y Karim 
Lorca, how the particles dance 
in the morning light! the clamour of bells
interrupts a momentary slip of devotion.
i lather my body with lotions and oils. 
my throat is parched. the fountains
and rivers have been flowing all summer. 
the plaza is once again bathed 
in light. each of us desires our elusive 
architecture of happiness. at the foot
of the fortress, joy expressed itself
in rhythms and in vows. Lorca, how 
regal the groom and bride! 
how happy we all were from 
across the world, toasting and 
cheering and sharing stories of 
train rides and flight times, theory and 
research, activism and withdrawal, 
movement and arrival. i felt again 
a pang for New York. we danced 
into the pulsating sweetness 
of the evening. oh, how the 
taps kept flowing. Lorca, she 
spoke of how they have made 
from your poetry 
a song.

‍

2nd June 2025

Lorca, my head is spinning. 
up the incline, past the burning
building, the long light brings 
a smooth tan. see the people revelling 
in splendour, ornate gardens, 
grand archways, the etchings and carvings 
that speak the hundred unknowable 
names of god. the grandeur of divinity 
impressed in the towers, walls, 
and fixtures. beyond the monuments 
are the neighbourhoods and their
narrow roads, the medieval 
chapels and cathedrals, the 
mountains capped with snow,
and the burning building, dark
smoke slowly thinning into
white. the winds stir clouds
of dust on the roads. the
sultans were vanquished 
and their followers converted
and expelled. preserving 
this edifice is a cruel,
beautiful, and triumphal 
act. Lorca, it seems more
and more desire only 
to forget.  

‍

3rd June 2025

Lorca, how the pace and pulse have 
quickened! in Madrid, the roads are
wide and the pavements are full. i met
this city in Spencer’s poems. i meet it
again in spirit and in breath. 
the voices and cars rumble 
through the night. the people spill 
into the boulevards and plazas. 
Valle-Inclán stands in the mural
of the churro store. how he railed
against tyrants and dictators 
in coffeehouses. the flamenco 
dancers stomp with grace and 
power, the sweep of shawls 
and dresses under the spotlight. 
the band of six sits behind, voices
rising like a call to prayer. it is late,
Lorca, and we are tired, 
yet the city continues to vibrate.

‍

4th June 2025 

Lorca, i remembered today 
how art activates a memory|
of suffering. bombardment
gives way to the indiscipline
of surrealism. the shapes
warp, bend, and melt into
the ambient air. the inner
reality transmuted from text
to image. the image poetic.
Dali learns the eschatology
of the sea urchin. Buñuel 
encodes behaviours of 
illogic. Breton layers
montage and collage and 
manipulation. see how the 
children watch Guernica 
like television, legs crossed
on the museum’s marble 
floor. Picasso dreamt
only of a monstrous pain. 
the weeping mother and her
contortions. the child-corpse
stained in tears. the image
is disorientation, is dislocation
is discombobulation. the tongue
of the horse is like a spear. 
the marrow of the forearm
is visible on the soil. the sword
is shattered. the spectre of a
woman wails. the bulb is the
bomb. the bull runs amok. 
the flesh shall wither to 
rocks and to bones. these 
captors and conquerors.
these courtesans and 
revellers. these spies and
counterrevolutionaries. they 
took the best spoils of
the centuries to rend their
towns and cities. the heirs to
El Greco, Velázquez, y
Goya. oh master, oh
propagandist. oh portrait,
oh buffoon. oh court oddity,
oh white divinity. oh anatomy, 
oh mystery. oh monastic, 
oh brilliant delivery. oh
artist, oh royal child. 
oh ravaged liver, oh
strained body. i see 
the horrors that have 
resided within. i see 
how the new world 
returns to the old. 
i see Saturn’s bite 
of each child, bloody,
in this palace, this
panopticon of portraits, 
the heraldry of sword 
and pen, the hands 
bearing silver goblets, 
the images remade in
punished climes.
the imaginary bell is tolling. 
Madrid has yet been kind. 
Lorca, it is time. 
Lorca, i am leaving late. 
Lorca, how i must return 
to wait.

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My elephant ear is yellowing again 
by xochi quetzali cartland

Not pale yellow. Not subtle or quiet,
not the Home Depot paint colors
labeled “vanilla ice cream” or
“belgian waffle,” how they’re delicious
to the eyes. She’s Ms. Frizzle’s magic bus.
She’s the Morton salt girl, sauntering along,
refusing to succumb to the natural disaster
of human tears. In her center, she has a lattice
of deep purple veins, proud to be alive. Unafraid
of her snake plant neighbors, her riot of purple and
yellow in this pale green place. How she makes it all
look easy, like gold crowns and heliotrope robes,
not day old bruises, the kind I get when the ache
runs ocean deep. Like a good parent, I worry for
nothing. Come spring she’ll unfurl, her heart
spilling open in the span of a single day.
Hope, after all, is a gift economy. Soon,
there will be a ladder out of this grief.

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Sons of God
by Zachary Forrest y Salazar

I live, like most sons do,
         for my father’s approval—
unseen. I live in grass,
         green beneath the boot.

                                       ✭

My father asks to meet him in the desert.
And I find him, in human cosplay—dying
from hunger. I tell him—make some food.
Do the whole “bread from the rocks” trick.
‍He refuses, says—Carry me. Show me the
world before I die. I ask if he can fix the
world—the hunger, violence, and greed?
He laughs, like I’m a child, and tells me
I must take him to Jerusalem. I lay him
down on the temple steps. I ask for help
and look for his friends. When I return,
he is gone. Later, I find him again, calling
me a devil to all his companions. One of
them writing—while snickering to himself.

                                       ✭

In a beginning, the spirit of God moved over the waters,
         moved over the formless deep.

And then, a different beginning, the Missouri Ozarks
         and me born into them. My father,  

who told stories of how he walked an animal trapline 
         for squirrels and rabbits.
What’s a trapline? I asked. In a beginning was the Word
         and the Word was with God.

My father's word to me, constantly, said I was lucky
         to have a roof over my head.

A trapline is a series of traps set to capture animals
         moving through the woods.
I consider my own spirit, once moving free through
         the universe, taken prisoner.
‍

                                       ✭


For my father’s approval
         I live, like most sons do—
unseen. Still green, in
         grass beneath the brute.
‍

         

                                       ✭

The way my father told it, some railroad tie gangs had machines,
but not his. His was backbreaking work, pulling and driving spikes.

He told me he missed once, the hammer bouncing off the rail back
into his face. New years of January ’79, my father was called to

Kansas City to sweep switches. He met the train at the railroad
yards in Springfield, sleeping all night in the caboose, no heat.

Sweeping switches means you remove debris and snow and frost
from the handle, ensuring the switch can move in both directions—

engaging the locking mechanism. He used a broom, with an end
that chiseled ice, for eight hours in the frigid cold. My father tells

me that I have it easy, considering all the nights he spent like that.
And I try to imagine him asleep on a Greyhound bus, riding back

home the night of my birth. Imagine him just twenty-one and soon
to be a father of a son who would never, not really, appreciate him.

‍

                                       ✭

Little traumas passed on to me,
multiplied by a good measure,
pressed down and shaken together,
running over and free.

I wasn’t allowed to disagree.
He lived above the refrigerator,
an ever present neighbor—
this paddle, this Mr. Woody.

My father liked to threaten me
with the name he carved by router.
Was I a child or a coward
when I couldn’t find words to speak?

With each beating came a hug,
abuse dressed up to look like love.

         

                                       ✭

Unseen—I live in grass,
         for my father’s approval.
I live, like most sons do—
         neck beneath the boot.

         

                                       ✭

O Light Bringer, did Father God get it wrong
when He cast you down to earth? Morning Dawn,

when He said your sin was Pride, named you Satan,
when He gave angels with you slurs for names,

when He stripped them of light to give them darkness,
when Father called them demon; Lucifer, confess—

are the old stories true? You wanted Him to pay
for it? Refused to bow the knee? Chose to take

the time towards perfecting our demise?
Did you invent money? Incite wars? Invite

the billionaire? Demon of Whatever-
Thing-We-Hate-About-Someone-Else was clever.

Tell me, what is the greatest trick you pulled?
I wonder if it's the trick I was told.

         

                                       ✭


My father used to smile when I was eighteen, when I struck
the walnut wood with maul and axe, everything I had to give,

until finally surrendering for him to finish it. I remember once,
we split some hedge wood, and several bats broke out, flying

from the yellow grains into the yellow sun. My father—he loved
the heat of hedge wood from a stove, how hot it burned, loved

fried eggs and leather boots and his children—quiet. It was hard
to know what we could say and not say without risking the switch.

What we could believe or not believe, what to ask and not ask.
When I could no longer pretend I hadn’t changed from the son

he knew, I drove my Chevy truck down the gravel road until I hit
asphalt. And I kept driving—further east, past our old church—

past the state line. Like some black bat escaping after the world
split open, and I was free, for the first time, to pursue the sun.

‍

                                       ✭


Crawling from the brute,
         I live unseen—  
like most sons do. Hiding
         in trees and fruit.

‍

                                       ✭

Luci says skip Arkansas. Meaning, skip our father
who lives there—and not in Heaven. Meaning, we
don’t need to sit for hours in his house slash barn,
talking about nothing. Don’t need to watch him pet

his dog, or pretend to care when he asks about work
or the weather. Don’t need to let him slip into other
kinds of talk, kinds that light us on fire like the Santa
Ynez mountains in Santa Barbara drought. I don’t

believe it’s climate change, he says, it’s punishment—
for all the laws tolerating homosexuals. And what
will either of us say in response? The both of us
cowards, so—nothing. Luci says skip it. Skip him.

Skip talk about church and sin and what the Bible says.
Meaning, this is the best possible way we can love him—
like the switches he made us choose and cut ourselves
before hitting us—it’s the only way he’s gonna learn.

‍

                                       ✭


O Mephistopheles, do you hear from Him? Does He ever call
and ask about your life? I've been estranged since the fall

from grace with my own father. O Noctifer, my dejected friend,
I’m sorry you feel so alone. Remember on the beach when

we saw the sunset and you whispered Lucifer? You cried—
said the world calls you Satan now. I recall the tide's

slow crash against the beach and how I held you fiercely.
My father also never calls. And the truth is, I think—

Luci, he doesn't give me any thought. He won't set foot
in California, tells me I'm lost and sin covers me like soot.

We're not so different, you and I. My dear Mephistopheles,
the burden of our father's expectations seem the same. Seem

unable to change their ways. I thought—after Job, the games
were finally done. I had hoped—I'm not sure hope remains.

         

                                       ✭


In grass, among roots,
         I live, unseen.
Most sons do—quiet,
         small, and mute.

         

                                       ✭

I will not say I speak for God. My words are—my words.
         My heart—my heart.
I look like my father, more as I get older, but I am not
         my father. My words—
are my words and not God’s. When I was young, my heart
         knew that some
words were dangerous—words curious about God’s Word
         and who wrote it,
questioning why it made no sense. God’s words, inerrant,
         said my father—
and my father spoke for God. My father says God loves
         every life but—hates sin.
God’s words, he says. Or my father’s heart. My heart—
         unlike my father’s—
declares his words blasphemous. My words—just my words,
         unspoken for God,
but spoken for my heart—given to me, by God. My heart—
         at last, unafraid to speak.

‍

                                       ✭

Last night, I dreamed about my father—
dreams of the Arkansas horizon, orange

sun cresting over the Ozark ridge, color
drawn on everything. Soft dew glistens

atop fields of grass. My father sitting alone
with his dog, reading his worn out Bible.

It felt like the present. I could smell the air.
He asks me, in the dream, if I know God,

if God is still in my heart. And I tell him no.
I say the truth knowing it’s just a dream.

The Lord God Bird resurrected, I hear
their song in the trees. It’s a dream, so

it can be any song I want. It’s a dream, so
my father says ok—and reaches—to kiss me.

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Tim Seibles
RUNAWAY BLUES VILLANELLE

Maybe we could all just fly away
Time will say nothing, but I told you so
Not sure what else time can really say

Not sure I wanna write this anyway
Woke up feelin like   I jus don’ know
Maybe we could all just walk away

No use runnin hot and yellin all damn day
Mom told me No one monkey stops the show
Guess she didn’t know what else to say

Maybe I should put my mind on layaway
Can’t turn it off—can’t tell where it’ll go
Think I might just turn away

Summa y’all go to church and pray
I look at the sky—   I just don’ know
Maybe we should all just run away

Gotta try somethin, come what might may
When that goes wrong, they’ll shrug I told you so
Ain’t that some worthless shit to say

People worry ‘bout who’s straight, who’s gay:
The body’s the arrow, the heart’s the bow
Someday we’ll all just fly away

When I go, just let Omar Sosa play
Then rock’a my soul at a Funkadelic show

You give me half a chance, I’d get away
When you think about it, same thing time would say

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