Soundtest
(listen to the poem, read by the author)
When I lose
my language,
I will not know
which neighbor-wish
is keeping me awake.
I will hear them as in
baby days and dark
and remember:
I lived then,
and I am
living now.
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Wish
(listen to the poem, read by the author)
Cancer in a starlike cell
wiggles, chasing health,
while octopushing on the love
of dark almond chocolate,
the programmed foot
on a Hyundai’s pedal,
the pillow’s massage that sinks
the brain from ears and eyes
to a dream that fires
the accreted career,
fills walls with the neighbor’s
clanking babybath,
issues a locker
on concrete floor.
Greed for the good is good,
said a starstealer
as he poked peace into retreat,
leaving only the mission
to find it, sneak it back inside
the curling lines of lobes
before a twinkle
slithers.
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Catalogue
(listen to the poem, read by the author)
I need a gray wool hat
to hide the question-mark
scar that curves around
my words and drops
below my sideburn.
I like every person
smiling at me
and the world I forget
to smile at,
and I like their promise
of thirty percent
off because I want
every bit possible off
the shelves and balance
sheets of the skull.
I want to worry
about clothing and whether
to buy shirts designed
to be worn untucked
or not, to return
to worries that stem
from how to spend
and when to wear
new hats and not what’s
growing underneath.
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About the Author
Brett Stuckel’s writing has appeared in Electric Literature, Hobart, Split Lip Magazine, and elsewhere. He lives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and is online at www.brettstuckel.com.