Patrick Samuel
nonperishable
bored in other
males dying
to tell stories
sometimes I think
I’m not civilization
way up high
in them mountains
vultures
mass buddhist sky
deaths purr
from the solitary
helicopter dropping
without even a sack
a tree that’ll sprout
rooted in my chest
the list
the village had me
sent to retrieve
eventually stumped
lumbered
into cabinetry
piling compost off where it won’t creep in through our windows
drawn from an alcove
is a dark knob—
the ink’s so I want it
around my neck like a trinket
brought home from war
a crystal roosters throat
mined from the bones
of earth
counterbalancing magics
impale
the scarecrow I tether
to this landscape
because you have air
I shouldn’t worry
militias
confirm the animal
scrape and oil skewered
sentinels
away from my children
however hypothetical they may be
when avalanched, spit to find up
like bubbles in a car
that’s careened into water
jam I’d made remained etched on my spine
as if it were jewelry
in a sandwich
bag in my pocket
off to pawn
and grew a tree
no one attempts to classify
went around asking
folks to carve
their initials into its bark
went around until folks
were left carving
into the bark already carved in
off-kilter
I don’t mean
salt my gut
that’s been cleaned
like a fish
by my father
under weight
of moons
in planets
I never could
understand
cruising altitudes
about the cabin
when the fasten
belt light bump
has pissing
cursive in snow
hard with only
blood rush
by myself with a stranger behind you
I know nothing
of behave this body
as if the sun and moon
during eclipse dressed
for the job with holes
in my underwear and socks
I work too often away
from this field
within tighter languages
titers will always test
to keep healthy I drink fizz
every morning with eggs
some mornings
I have eggs and regret
a field to me is where it’s quiet
and then my dad shoots his gun
I’m never quick enough
to see the game blowback
from a shotgun is my version
of seeing stars
I hide secrets in kissy
emojis to my boo (what’s for lunch)
I am thirty-three
lovelorn and I know nothing
thankful to know nothing
so you’d talk to me for a long time
if you were here
union song
you had
rhythm
calling shoulders
soda
can me open
face my hair with wash
egg or snow
I want your rules
home
tipsy
for dinner
parting my parts
anti-grain
like a country
the flus again
I blah
I blah blank jack-ups
I say the o-yawn
even the sleep is hard