mi magnifico
oblong drops of coffee drip down the spine
of plastic cups. somewhere in between I hear the voices,
my parents; they call my name but their cries are distanced
in paper-walled echoes.
mother on her knees weeping softly,
it's alright to let it out she says. your dad is strong,
she says, we'll get through this no matter what. outside winter
is being pissed on by the angry sun,
the fucking pissed off angry fucking sun.
it melts the muddy snow, the mass grows inside my father.
I'm here for you dad, forever, I say.
I know you are.
when night comes all is quiet, bellies spilling with
arrowy pigfeast, I turn and hold and believe in no magic
& no god. somewhere in the sky
there is no one laughing no one proving me wrong.
it is all fluttered prose. without conviction
the fumes run through the room, scaled in particled air,
filling up the sleeves of sadness like the leaky veins of a wristcutter.
father is sleeping now, I can hear his breathing apparatus –
robot pumping oxygen into his lungs. mother with a book upon her,
the dogs passed out in the neolithic night.
we bang on turtle shells
we bathe in heated coals and rocks
we try to stay awake through the sterile and the dying.
*Bryan S. Way just graduated from Bridgewater State University. In the following years, he will be living on the road and in the mountains, developing community with the precision of a vagabond, and exploring the depths of character that can only be attained through the willing rejection of comfortable living. And he will write about it.
