Literature
keyser
how many summers did you spend
couched in west virginia?
street smitten, sore legged
pacing the fence of adolescent mess
in mountain’s maw, raining angel’s ash,
the absolute heat death of july
forever finding homes
in someone’s sister’s basement,
curled in a messy bedroom,
growing pains in your shins
getting taller couldn’t relieve
against grainy adult swim shock toons
estrogenic mall musk and slurpee vomit
mom going on and on
about some lie you told, or didn’t
as if you culled the children to the cellar
and beat them before you were born,
as if you were a songless canary
in a coal mine collapsing
do