by Christian Fuller
we'll die before we leave here
hang our tongues open under the contrails
until the air burns, bright blue
sky wearing its surgery scars
birdcalls from white oaks
planted prim and interspersed and we wonder
are they surveillance devices? where do they send
the data? will summer ever end again?
and at least we know we’re still people
because we bleed hot and true when cut
with broken glass, no lizard scales,
no lukewarm blood
just good and honest dying like our dads
hard men and harder drinkers, did long before us
in the sky the clouds make breaking iceberg shapes
in the sky the clouds look like gaped mouths, opening
to eat us. in the sky, fighter jets do ballet pirouettes
but i tell you not to worry, cause it’s just such a godawfully
beautiful day out
zillow summer
we dive headfirst
into to the heat shimmer
off parked cars, 2009s we can’t
afford on the resale market. each evening
we make our mouths crime scene
red with overpriced fruit, in season
somewhere, fruit we wish we’d picked
from back garden vines but settle for it prepacked,
precut, dissociated from scabbed hands wilted
under a sun that feels much the same as ours
heavy as the soil bending the for sale sign
in the yard
every day i say i’ll buy you wine
but only come home with cheap beer
rats have conquered the back garden
piecing away at the bell peppers noosed
from their vines. we spray heavy chemicals
bought from the discount shelves at the big box
nothing dies but the annuals we spent
half our last rent check on
mosquitoes hold congress in the rusting firepit
full of rainwater
we have ceded more ground than we can recommit
we walk the rich neighborhoods
and the sprinklers pelt us over the hedges
we say one day, who knows, could be ours
leaving a trail of beer cans to find our way back
but back home, the roaches congregate in the glue trap
we set out for rodents. they hiss gospel tunes, we throw
cheap beer cans at the recycling bag and miss,
we hang our underwear on clotheslines, and let stale menthol
wash the good water out
i am smiling, always smiling still, even as I swat
the sitting-water mosquitoes from my skin
****
Christian Fuller is a writer from Baltimore. His fiction has been featured in HAD, BRUISER, Variant Literature, Peatsmoke, BULL, and other lovely places. You can find him doing daily humiliation rituals on X @cfullerwrites