TWO POEMS Travis Brown

KINGDOM COME

Or maybe it has
glided by I guess
nothing sticks to
a green glass city
we didn't think
it would our plan
was a dark hat no
sleep two bats so
it must have been
mine she got sick
of bright lights big
deal put a hard one
under those great
glad moustaches
the heart is just
an apple and I'm
not a touched on
jerk up a tender
tree but a bird you
see we did break
in it was just us
me and her both
cut him up like that
and now we worry
first thing each day
it's like a knife
you can stick it
into anything

 

IN TWIN TOWN

Who laid down
the bouquet of beliefs.

I had held it
so long, lovingly.

Like an injury
who came to me—

I was falling, a corn crib,
breaking, a bird cage—

and who rang the bell,
but I could not,

I would not do.

Just look—
these weeds,

thistle pin pricks,

all of us
a scribbling curve.

I, sheared off
and who, the stalk,

the thought lost,
who had dreamed all of it up,

passed it through a sieve,
and there

we were an old man
in two parts—

a just-turned child,
a blur of bobwhite.