Sonnet Anna Šverclová

after Diane Seuss

It won’t kill me to be sad again for just a little while, I think every winter, as the gray day stretches before me through Wisconsin, I-94 and a series of numbered roads, “Wallflower” by Bob Dylan on the radio like Dad was here, listening to the music crackle in and out of its life, the gas station worker with the fishing lure tattoo who wouldn’t look me in the eye, who sold me the dill pickle chips and 2 diet cokes I had to can when I got to the ward, like I’d have known they couldn’t give her salt, or caffeine, or anything homemade, and it was sad seeing mom again, nothing bad happened, just the usual sad of her begging to leave that place, any place, and me being so powerless, or maybe spineless, ‘cause I’ll never tell her no, and she keeps reminding me of that promise, Remember when you were five and begged me to tell you that we would always live together? And I look around the ward like, where? But I know I can’t say it, I’m trained, back in The Nursing Home they told us The Demented have the right to live in their minds. Don’t correct. Pivot. Sure, ma, and I mention The New Baby and she pulls out a photo album, says, look, I know this baby isn’t real and I pivot, Did you get my letter? No, of course not, they’re still in the process of searching, aren’t we all? And at the end of the hour she is folded back through the door I can’t enter, and I still haven’t answered any of her calls.

When you come to me

When you come to me it’s in the trunk of my car in the Wolfy’s parking lot. With your hair disgusting and melted cheese staining your pants You have never looked more beautiful in your life. A careless smile across both our faces create wrinkles, so we can look as old as we think we are. Because you and I knew everything.

I haven’t been home since we left, but I close my eyes and I’m running to you again. Barefoot.

The way to your house etched along my scar tissue. You smell of oil paint, peppermint, and mold, and if I focus you’re sitting across from me. Your small fingers wrapped in yarn, sometimes I wonder what they would feel like wrapped in my hair instead.

We could have learned how to love together. I taught you to drive. Could you have taught me how to break down and regrow? Brighter and greener this time, sneaking through your window from the apple orchard growing in your back alley.

Today I watched you pass by Wolfy’s. I prayed to God you thought of me, and I could picture you in your mom’s minivan. Smiling despite your best intentions because I come to you.

With messy hair in the trunk of my car, eating cheese fries, younger than we’d ever been before.

in heat Nguyễn Trung Kiên

im used to the heat of the sun lifting open eyelids, heavy with citrus scent lingering by my side in my hair, my skin, my mind clouded by strands of scotch , the gentle aching for bite-sized breath slipped through your lips wrinkled words, hollow bed sheets twisted into promises we made to break when I close my eyes as you came back to my side only to cover what the sun unearths with unbuckled belts and self-destruct texts, — like an agent on a mission to rescue what’s left of a building they themself set on fire , crept in from the back door taking only what they need , leaving me in the heat as the sun ascends