Smoke Screen
Last week the world started destroying
itself again. Images of a girl without eyes,
flat on a trampoline, the air around her
more gasoline than snow. God if god
give us snow. A pewter we can blow
dust off, hold like pencils in the twitch
of our fingers and write new languages
for freedom and distance. We await
mercy as if it’s lost luggage. We draw
the faces of tropical fish against airplane
windows. God if god send rain. Endless
pellets of bluegrass and I’m sorry so sorry
never again. A boy like a yellow kite
stuck in an apple tree, limbs vining
into branches. We cannot stand another
flood. Will we forever be witness? We interest
the dark by standing long enough, orange
tip of a cigarette dying, glowing until the sun
sucks up the throat of the sky. We will
not go inside. Most dogs never grow back
their missing legs. Some swans
are never painted in pigments of want.
We try to give a name to everything.
In the middle of Montana, with backs
broken by beauty, all we know is cadaver,
spleen, amethyst, smoke screen, grenade
pins, Christ’s skin crinkling, newspaper
ink, children laughing under floorboards,
deer stink, night sweats, beverages birthing
forgive forgot forever until we meet again.
God if god if got if good for nothing.
by Philip Schaefer
itself again. Images of a girl without eyes,
flat on a trampoline, the air around her
more gasoline than snow. God if god
give us snow. A pewter we can blow
dust off, hold like pencils in the twitch
of our fingers and write new languages
for freedom and distance. We await
mercy as if it’s lost luggage. We draw
the faces of tropical fish against airplane
windows. God if god send rain. Endless
pellets of bluegrass and I’m sorry so sorry
never again. A boy like a yellow kite
stuck in an apple tree, limbs vining
into branches. We cannot stand another
flood. Will we forever be witness? We interest
the dark by standing long enough, orange
tip of a cigarette dying, glowing until the sun
sucks up the throat of the sky. We will
not go inside. Most dogs never grow back
their missing legs. Some swans
are never painted in pigments of want.
We try to give a name to everything.
In the middle of Montana, with backs
broken by beauty, all we know is cadaver,
spleen, amethyst, smoke screen, grenade
pins, Christ’s skin crinkling, newspaper
ink, children laughing under floorboards,
deer stink, night sweats, beverages birthing
forgive forgot forever until we meet again.
God if god if got if good for nothing.
by Philip Schaefer
Philip Schaefer is the author of three chapbooks. [Hideous] Miraculous is available from BOAAT Press, while Radio Silence (forthcoming 2016 from Black Lawrence Press) and Smokes Tones (available from Phantom Books) were co-written with poet Jeff Whitney. Individual work is out or due out in Thrush, Guernica, The Cincinnati Review, Birdfeast, Forklift Ohio, DIAGRAM, Sonora Review, H_NGM_N, and Hayden’s Ferry among others. He tends bar at a craft distillery in Missoula, where he received his MFA from the University of Montana.