by Kyle McCord
awe and hallelujah
In a sudden moment of panic, you remembered you'd left an oven on somewhere but kissed me anyway. Light, but like you meant it. Like the kitchen might have burnt down already, so why not make it worth my while? kind of kiss. I walked home like Lorca on his best day, falling in all the leaf piles. I kissed the earth and lawn ornaments. I kissed thistles and bits of bark begging for their jobs back on the cushy redwoods up the road. I kissed a tamale vendor and his wife, four of her cousins. Your tamales explode into jazz I said. I had no idea what this meant. I was being asked to leave the strip mall. Someone said, That man needs help. Someone said, It was terrifying. Like watching a blimp crash over and over into a helpless stadium. I was asked to accept that I had kissed, that I would kiss again. I was given a handout. I was handed a doughnut. But back to you who by now had battled the blaze to minor structural damage. Back to your friend, the French Canadian, who offered to buy us salvia. I wanted to kiss her too, but by now I was being more closely monitored. I didn't want to overplay my hand. A team of specialists was on hand. It seems I'd been at this longer than I'd remembered— a thousand years at least. All my pets had long since passed on. They said, We need you, don't go. They said, All hail the great, kissing god. But how much longer must I tongue the moon across this sky just to watch it twist away, come crawling back?
for my father, regarding my law school acceptance
Good news, Dad: in Monroe, Louisiana an editor is wadding up this poem. He arches his arms like some sort of air mantis and shoots it toward a plastic trash can. He misses. Everyone in the office cheers. They cheer because maybe I will finally accept my admission offer from Vanderbilt Law. The editor says huddle up team. The editor says, I'm going to read a poem aloud. "My goat is sad. My goat is green," he begins. It's a ballad about a Romanian man's conscripted son. One editor sits at his desk reading an essay debating the ethics of Rasputin's nigh-invincibility. It's obvious his feet want to clamor up the desk. His sweater wants to devour his neck. The editor is daydreaming of Sydney and waddles over to unwad the poem to prove a point about scholarly integrity. Nothing is happening in this stupid poem, he thinks. His eyes run over the words "sex-boots" and he begins to recall his trip to Texas in 1963—the trip that made him the man he is today. He runs his hands over what appears to be a guitar case. He mutters something into the graffiti-streaks of the newspaper stand. It's a cool afternoon in October. In a month's time, the editor will appease his father by filling out law school applications. Then even the dead will go sleepless in the streets of Dallas, and he will watch them clear and soggy through the scope of the rifle.
In a sudden moment of panic, you remembered you'd left an oven on somewhere but kissed me anyway. Light, but like you meant it. Like the kitchen might have burnt down already, so why not make it worth my while? kind of kiss. I walked home like Lorca on his best day, falling in all the leaf piles. I kissed the earth and lawn ornaments. I kissed thistles and bits of bark begging for their jobs back on the cushy redwoods up the road. I kissed a tamale vendor and his wife, four of her cousins. Your tamales explode into jazz I said. I had no idea what this meant. I was being asked to leave the strip mall. Someone said, That man needs help. Someone said, It was terrifying. Like watching a blimp crash over and over into a helpless stadium. I was asked to accept that I had kissed, that I would kiss again. I was given a handout. I was handed a doughnut. But back to you who by now had battled the blaze to minor structural damage. Back to your friend, the French Canadian, who offered to buy us salvia. I wanted to kiss her too, but by now I was being more closely monitored. I didn't want to overplay my hand. A team of specialists was on hand. It seems I'd been at this longer than I'd remembered— a thousand years at least. All my pets had long since passed on. They said, We need you, don't go. They said, All hail the great, kissing god. But how much longer must I tongue the moon across this sky just to watch it twist away, come crawling back?
for my father, regarding my law school acceptance
Good news, Dad: in Monroe, Louisiana an editor is wadding up this poem. He arches his arms like some sort of air mantis and shoots it toward a plastic trash can. He misses. Everyone in the office cheers. They cheer because maybe I will finally accept my admission offer from Vanderbilt Law. The editor says huddle up team. The editor says, I'm going to read a poem aloud. "My goat is sad. My goat is green," he begins. It's a ballad about a Romanian man's conscripted son. One editor sits at his desk reading an essay debating the ethics of Rasputin's nigh-invincibility. It's obvious his feet want to clamor up the desk. His sweater wants to devour his neck. The editor is daydreaming of Sydney and waddles over to unwad the poem to prove a point about scholarly integrity. Nothing is happening in this stupid poem, he thinks. His eyes run over the words "sex-boots" and he begins to recall his trip to Texas in 1963—the trip that made him the man he is today. He runs his hands over what appears to be a guitar case. He mutters something into the graffiti-streaks of the newspaper stand. It's a cool afternoon in October. In a month's time, the editor will appease his father by filling out law school applications. Then even the dead will go sleepless in the streets of Dallas, and he will watch them clear and soggy through the scope of the rifle.
Kyle McCord is the author of three books of poetry: Galley of the Beloved in Torment (Dream Horse Press 2009), a co-written book of epistolary poems entitled Informal Invitations to a Traveler (Gold Wake Press 2011) and Sympathy from the Devil forthcoming from Gold Wake Press in 2013. He has work featured in Boston Review, Cream City Review, Gulf Coast, Sixth Finch, Volt and elsewhere. He co-edits iO: A Journal of New American Poetry. He is a teaching fellow at University of North Texas in Denton, TX.