if it ends tomorrow, i die the luckiest person who ever lived
i own a body that is mine
and when i breathe
each unguaranteed piece of air,
i breathe every lung
that came before me
i live with a human
i love voraciously,
wake to her hot face
and kiss her like a dog
laps its silver water bowl
in the classroom,
i teach my throat to clamping,
parade in rampant gesticulation;
when i am angry,
my wrath’s a monarch,
when i’m happy,
the light from my teeth
burns little holes
in their foreheads
nights, i slit my eyes open
and words spill black ink
on a computer screen;
sometimes i hate the words
and sometimes
they’re fatty and excellent
as prime rib,
but i always have them
i eat good meals, two-a-day,
gathered from a supermarket;
i haven’t wanted in years
i live in a warm place,
drink good beer,
make coffee so strong
it should be illegal,
when i cry i know a storm’s
passing through me,
when it storms i know
the mud will smell
of frog-catching season
who could say anyone’s
ever had more?
i go to sleep
in night’s star-fat silence.
Brendan Walsh has lived and taught in South Korea, Laos, and South Florida. His work appears in Glass Poetry, Indianapolis Review, Wisconsin Review, Mudfish, Lines + Stars, and other journals. He is the author of Make Anything Whole (Five Oaks Press), Go (Aldrich Press) and Buddha vs. Bonobo (Sutra Press). He’s online at www.brendanwalshpoetry.com.
