DALTON DAY
YEAH NO FUCK MAYBE for Clare V. |
How do you talk about the sun without mentioning
blood? I can’t do it. I see the streets & forget the miracle of distance & the removal of it. // How many arrows, buried in the ground, have you walked over as you impact the shape of the air? True, the science can’t be argued with: we, all of us, are the opposite of trees. But that’s begun to change, thanks to you. // I ask questions because I like their rhythm. // What’s a stop sign? Did you see the moon tonight? Will this matter, at all? You can never ask a question that doesn’t end up aimed at the sky. // I used to know a joke about the atmosphere. I forget the set up, but it ended with me floating away through space pretending that the stars were all cars speeding towards me. That was the punchline, the word pretend. |
Coffin Rehearsal
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What does my palm say? This lake, this lake, here. Could it be lifted? If only I hadn’t come too close to Heaven. But what else to name a face, a face, a face? See? I try & I can’t shake the shake that I’m at the center of any one thing. Anything my hands says, I wanted it to. I could’ve drowned by now. Lift this, this, this. I’ve called a body many things. But never a prayer.
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Flock Gut Grow
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From where I am, it looks like you are standing still. I know you’re not. I know I’m wrong. I know this because I made a childhood of wrongness. A long time ago, I put myself in the ground & said when I’m old, cut me down & make a home you can be happy in. Do you remember that? But you said No no you can’t be dead You can’t be dead not yet no no. You didn’t know that a wretched life is never a wretched life. I can’t help but bloom. I can’t help but think it. You are moving, slowly through the air. You think the same of me. But wherever we are, the air isn’t.
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DALTON DAY is a trembling dog person, Pushcart nominee, & MFA candidate in The New Writer's Project. He is the author of the chapbooks Fake Knife & TANDEM, & his poems have been featured in PANK, Hobart, & Everyday Genius, among others. He helps edit FreezeRay Poetry, Souvenir Lit & can be found at myshoesuntied.tumblr.com & twitter.com/lilghosthands.
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