[Plain Text Version]

1976

the world arrived in dissonant tones

shadows of branches hatching the grass

tv said sky alive with deadly light

hidden in mom and dad’s closet

a box full of chocolate bars

beside a leather bag full of guns

before the world awakened 

we wandered outside and found

a moonlit snake on the porch

it turned its head to appraise us

and lazily looked away again

so slow it is moving still

though its body is long gone

the blue lion of dawn still shaking his mane

tv said was full of lice and ticks and worms

and the gilded blue of the lake beckoning

but mother said don’t go

if you drown, I’ll spank you

even this thing they called love 

had an edge 

sharp enough to bleed

Jayson Iwen’s Roze & Blud won the 2020 Miller Williams Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the National Poetry Series. His other books include Dick, Gnarly Wounds, A Momentary Jokebook, and Six Trips in Two Directions. He co-translated Jawdat Fakhreddine’s Lighthouse for the Drowning and Salim Barakat’s Come, Take a Gentle Stab, which was a finalist for the 2022 Sarah Maguire International Poetry Translation Award.