from “SOUP”
Kevin Latimer | SOUP | Grieveland | February 2024 | 86 Pages
LOVE POEM OUTSIDE THE ZOETROPE
therapist at the zoom call is sitting on the grass & i’m sitting on the floor & both of us are scared to cry. confetti from the clouds like warning? orientation in pink & gold hues: my (dead) plants on another screen sewing a hat for my head. my cat, pregnant. this is a dangerous feeling i cannot shake.
i’ve been sitting on my floor for hours & then my therapist moves & then i cry & i am having a panic attack from the thought of this; like two tanks rolling over my throat & i’m pretty sure my heart can’t beat this fast & i’m pretty sure my cat is going into labor & i’m going to be a grandfather & i’m going to die.
i am not dead & my cat is not pregnant & my therapist is calling me on the phone & the power is out all over Cleveland & that’s just how the world is, she says & contrary to what she thinks, i know that & i am still scared.
the sky—orange as it is—sits waiting for me underneath the power lines. sometimes i make little trails with my fingers & imagine i’m a plane. i’m a good pilot, i say, but not a good son. i carry my parents with me everywhere i go: to the grocery store, the bank; in the checkout line, i pull my dad out & wave him around. everyone thinks i’m strange.
thesky—red as it is—topplinghouses like a burningpyre. the circus master enters, cracking a whip. welcome ladies & gentlemen to the main event of the evening, he says. & now i’m entering: the main event, the talk of the town; my mom sitting on my back as i balance along the lines. people around me laughing! at me or with me? i don’t know.
i wrote a book about my mom dying & then a book about my dad dying & i sit there reading scripture atop the cooling sky. i start crying & now everything is so sad. then my GOD appears & says, don’t be sad, i love you. then we sit there & read it together: his hands on my hands, turning pages. we skip over the poems in which the parents die.
SOUP
they hold room for grievances once more & all the boys in the high top fades raise their left hands. We see the shadows crawl up the wall, wave a tiny hello. There are 200,000 soldiers in the room & not one of us know how to shoot a gun. World so dripped with cotton & ripe sweat. We’ve been preparing for war these past few weeks. yr brother? Cold. yr cat? Cold. yr mother, father? Dead. we wrap ourselves in barbed wire so we learn to get tough. Roll down hills. Tumble into the audience
WILL SMITH is the best soldier in the ENTIRE platoon. he can throw grenades into the farthest foxhole. all the foxes don’t appreciate it WILL is shot on his way back from break. it’s not fatal? the doctor tells us. WILL retires from duty. I’m not very good at war & i’ve accepted that. LAMBs all over town. our army in disarray. the station to mars is blown up. this is the same as the last one, you’d say. here’s this performance. here’s my chin
i can’t smile even when the priest—dressed in pink feathers—recalls the moment directly after you welcoming me on set. one hundred solo cups hit dirt—outside, DJ JAZZY JEFF scratching, searing love notes into the window pane. lava slams upon the church windows; shattered pieces of youbleed from the sky—tears like tiny boats; cheekbones a pooling spot; when i recall loss, i shudder; like on that tuesday night after the bowling alley: both of us on fire. cigarettes in our hands like tiny flares.
this machine of war be like INSERT BODY HERE but the body is gone & the machine made of peonies/ rent the entire hall & fill it with leaflets about the rising tide levels hitting the shore/ some of us head down to the nearest rivervane & swim all morning/ shooting a gun is like dancing someone says/ shooting a gun is like dancing if dancing made money/ i eat a burger & spit it out/ i eat a warship & spit it out/ LOL at the kid so slow running in the trenches/ he’ll never make it out of here alive/ we’ll never make it out of here alive/ we chant in unison/ we’re learning this fear well
From SOUP by Kevin Latimer.
Copyright © 2023 Kevin Latimer.
Reprinted with permission of Grieveland.