(Drunken Boxing previously appeared in Yellow Medicine Review, Winter 2023)
I’ve lived seven hundred years;
my earliest memories are as a child
playing in the Cahokia megalopolis.
If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that
the dead get off easy.
Forty-four skulls
buried in the ground, [1]
concrete and rebar,
shadow scars
on Hiroshima walls
Where our bones will rest[2]
No marrows in[3] – all
dues down – dead from the neck up.[4]
Dig up her bones[5] – dig her up
in the name of anthropology;
dead name in her obituary,
this poem of dirt,
red earth on a moonless horizon.[6]
Still air and decay
sweet scents for anyone
who has died countless moments
and lived seventy-plus lifetimes;
potpourri
like ozone-laden winds of change
before a thunderstorm;
twin typhoons
pitch your ash to the seas,
Rimbaud,
tiny man in his boat,
cast to riptides and archipelagos,
heroes for ghosts;[7]
apparitions that try to leave
point me where to go,
because I can’t get there on my own[8].
I can’t see much future
in two cookies with no fortunes.
I know if I were to die tomorrow,
I hope our souls find
each other
once again
even if it’s
to burn
in the
same fire.
[1] Eels, “Soul Jacker part 1”
[2] “and we don’t know just where our bones will rest,” Smashing Pumpkins, “1979"
[3] Distillers, “Drain the Blood”
[4] ee cummings, “V” and “XXVIIII” from “Is 5” collection
[5] Misfits, “Dig Up Her Bones”
[6] Federico Garcia Lorca, “Ay!!”
[7] Pink Floyd, “Wish You Were Here”
[8] Misfits, “Dig Up Her Bones”
I’ve lived seven hundred years;
my earliest memories are as a child
playing in the Cahokia megalopolis.
If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that
the dead get off easy.
Forty-four skulls
buried in the ground, [1]
concrete and rebar,
shadow scars
on Hiroshima walls
Where our bones will rest[2]
No marrows in[3] – all
dues down – dead from the neck up.[4]
Dig up her bones[5] – dig her up
in the name of anthropology;
dead name in her obituary,
this poem of dirt,
red earth on a moonless horizon.[6]
Still air and decay
sweet scents for anyone
who has died countless moments
and lived seventy-plus lifetimes;
potpourri
like ozone-laden winds of change
before a thunderstorm;
twin typhoons
pitch your ash to the seas,
Rimbaud,
tiny man in his boat,
cast to riptides and archipelagos,
heroes for ghosts;[7]
apparitions that try to leave
point me where to go,
because I can’t get there on my own[8].
I can’t see much future
in two cookies with no fortunes.
I know if I were to die tomorrow,
I hope our souls find
each other
once again
even if it’s
to burn
in the
same fire.
[1] Eels, “Soul Jacker part 1”
[2] “and we don’t know just where our bones will rest,” Smashing Pumpkins, “1979"
[3] Distillers, “Drain the Blood”
[4] ee cummings, “V” and “XXVIIII” from “Is 5” collection
[5] Misfits, “Dig Up Her Bones”
[6] Federico Garcia Lorca, “Ay!!”
[7] Pink Floyd, “Wish You Were Here”
[8] Misfits, “Dig Up Her Bones”
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