Infest, Scaling the Lithosphere, and Poem from My Father to My Mother

Infest

which sounds like incest
in the lowlight of loud bars.
They’re called watering holes down South
and everyone stays to themselves.
No hellos. None of that Jazz.

On the empty walls, mosquitos rest
on rusty nails, once disguised
behind signs and clocks.
Gnats ready their attack on customers,
a bite that stings much worse
than kissing your sister.

The game is finally tied
on the black and white television screen.
Some of us notice, and cough
and order a few more.

Those boys are playing slap ass
a man admits behind his mustache,
and the mosquitos seem to chuckle
around the rim of his dripping beer

like a band of brothers.
There’s infest all around
the back door, and the bartender
has put out bowls with water and dish soap
and a splash of cider vinegar in each.
One fly falls in, then another.
The smell must attract them to themselves.

 

Scaling the Lithosphere

Don’t say I’m mistaken
about the marbled afterfields
off the highway’s outer coast.

You saw the treeless dirt atomizing itself.
You said there was no room for fireflies to hibernate.

The earth cracked
like a chapped mouth.
We broke off the ground.

with our careful shoes. We performed a rite
of passage, then left a wound to rise.

Naked and full of eyes,
we attended ourselves
to our together.

Thin across us, circling
the tense sky, ghost clouds gasp and revel.

We lied to each other, a little
to this land we untendered.
Silk shirts and buttons

like a crime scene
mid-blood. Don’t say

what must pass.
I’ve outspoken the soil
only to soften its blow.

 

Poem from My Father to My Mother

In this hour between midnight and morning
you wander the house like a mosquito,
perching your head against our son’s bedroom door.

We have to get some sleep.
I’ve drank so much medicine I think
I’m going to vomit or hallucinate,

or walk into the ocean of our lives
before the tables were filled
with too many roses. I hear

the porch door open. Come back inside,
drink all the decaffeinated out of the coffee.
You won’t, I know, as I lumber into his room,

and watch you hover over his bed.
You say you hear his voice in your head,
and when I put my ear against your temple,

I hear it too.


Brian Wiora is an MFA candidate in Poetry at Columbia University, where he serves as the Online Poetry Editor for Columbia Journal. His poems have appeared in Rattle, Gulf Stream Magazine, Alexandria Quarterly, Rainy Day Magazine, and other places. Besides Poetry, he enjoys listening to classic rock music, performing standup comedy, and traveling.

Photo Credit: Logan Tozzi, New Mexico Review Staff