i.
Toby, Mariah, a pandemic tearing
down buildings down the coast
of our sweet miraged alphabetical
memories; were they sour like pie
lemon tart becoming hard behind
glass, I’m not sure. What I do know
is the reason for leaving will never
catch up to the reason for reasoning
to leave, how fast a paper boat
floats down a lonely little stream
carried along by unkempt wind
no one did or do expect. Moronic.
I ate an apple from the fridge and
the fridge ate an apple, too: bulbous
red orb falling behind the vegetable
crisper. Now two are missing and I
am most certainly to blame.
v.
The highway is a mess.
The exit ramp, a mess.
The mall map is a mess.
The mall itself, messy.
The outside field, a mess,
a mess. The dinky fountain
in the center is a mess.
The comical sign reading
this is a mess is a mess,
how fitting. My shoes.
My coat my terrycloth
pants. My mess is a mess
which is the biggest joke
I realize, sitting beneath
the giant octagonal orange
glowing OPEN sign still
knowing full well the clinic
is closed, what a mess
what a mess everything.
xiii.
When you’ve run out of steam
metaphorical you keep chugging
a train taught my adolescent mouth
my training wheel gate, enormous
chivalrous all-engulfing sense of
self swallowing hole a banana a
sandwich a lobster dinner the table
holding all three the restaurant
fancy and unkempt in the back;
When you’ve run out of steam
steam ahead and pretend you’ve
stock-piled for the winter, the winter
following, maybe even three
winters, they’ll never know. Fake it
til they check beneath the rug
tying the whole room into one fiscal-
ly friendly home-studio, pre-pro
portioned canteens filled waterful
dehydrated meats dehydrated bean
stalks dehydrated everything everything
gets the same treatment.
When you’ve run out of steam you
run out for steam at the steamy steam
steam store, I digress.
When you’ve run out of steam
you recall the night the man next-
door made you play the Sega game
the 7-Up game the Sega 7-Up
game and every time you fell
from the cliff a little bottle cap,
helpless, open up: it is time
for
retrieval.
xix.
Roman numerals make everything seem so
chandelier shining in the courtyard, misplaced.
I traveled to market to market traveled I for
a breadloaf a cheesebrick a matchstick box
a carpenter ant for a pet, I believed this to be
a good decision. A good decision. A good.
When the carpenter/ant destroyed my wood
dresser my wooden obelisk inside I sent him
to sleep, godforsakeme. I applied for a loan.
I carried his dead remains remaining in a
small copper sarcophagus to a riverhead,
I placed the sarcoph on a load-bearing leaf.
I let the leaf let itself into a slipstream, pull-
ing the phagus under, crashing thrashing
into rocks beneath. Roman numerals make
a death a tiny death even seem wonderful.
Magnificence is marketable. The papers
will come soon. Ready your rifles, com-
padres.
Dillon J. Welch has an MFA in Poetry from NYU. His writing has appeared in Coldfront, CutBank, Jellyfish, Pinwheel, Sixth Finch, & other journals. His chapbook of Jewel erasures, Standing Comma Still, is forthcoming from Big Lucks Books (2017). He lives in America.