Two Poems

Memorial Day

this vacationland is safe, no more... —Ander Monson

This weekend in particular is three days
deep, still fucking. It breaks only to roll off.

This weekend is broken wheel,
a bed frame. It heels. It stands, silent

at salty taste, pausing again
at paltry pictures. This weekend is all drunk of whiskey.

All played of board games. Hell,
this weekend even I let the woman drive

for gas, for candy. And the morning after stays,
as always, at odd angles, mouth agape at gravesites.

Time, on any visit, is beaten down to death.
That's why the bodies are buried at hilltop.

Things always come up.

 

From the Fire

There is firework show in Wakefield
in the backyard on the Fourth of July

amongst the legs of my parents. It takes place
the year I burnt the soles of my shoes,

melted them on the grate of the fire.
That night and each one after, every girl

wears a tiny t-shirt and bouncy hair. That night
I snuck beers from my parents' party,

poured out a bit of cola
and poured some whiskey in

to drink as much as they were. Now
there's nothing but movement behind trees.

Everything blurs in drunken eyes and
goes onward, the night gets darker.

I remember orange faces in the glow.
I almost remember the way home.

I remember the first explosions
from the Black Cats I put into the flames—

the little red stars that fell
the sky. And the heads

as everyone leaned in and squinted,
waiting to see how bright it would get.