Adult Swim By Corey Van Landingham

Let them eat corn dogs. Let them
peel from its sack a freezer-burnt popsicle,
lime, green as an alien gem.

Let them pluck from the strung garland of chips

Sugaring their lips with the fine grit
of Sour Patch Kids, these strange children
lift to their mouths those soft little bodies
and chew. They forget, for just a moment, the water
from which they’ve been banished.
Then a pause in the guard station’s country radio—
they pirouette back and begin,

again, to sulk. Gawk. Let them.

It’s nearly time to reclaim
their pool. Each day, each hour,
they have dragged their soaking bodies
from its coolness and allowed their mothers
the reapplication of lotion and the petting
of their wet, tender heads.

No agony is greater
than theirs. Never have I felt so powerful.
Aren’t I magnificent,
floating on my back dead center? Aren’t I
a kingdom of one?
I could grow new gods.
Small princes.

(My grandmother’s voice—if you own nothing,
you are nothing—as she handed me, at Christmas,
a fresh certificate of stock. But she was an unhappy woman
and is dead.)

A whinny of pain
from a skinned knee, quick flash
of white before the blood. Not my wound
to treat. Another boy explaining to his mother’s magazine
how every day, every single day,
God puts out the sun by dunking it in the ocean.
Like a match dropped
into a glass.

Where does the next one come from,
he wants to know.

One up to his thighs already
until the strict whistle, the chorus
of booing beside him,
a leap back.
Lined on the plastic rim, the boys stare differently
than the men they will become.

Where are the wild things?

The boy worries.
Who promises tomorrows to a whole needful planet,
restrikes that match?

Who bears that next fiery sphere?

Who will remind this woman
she’s not some queen
acquiring a country estate—ruby brooches, oiled leaves
of topiaries glistening in midday sun—
while the real rural citizens starve. Fountains
upon fountains and a small pond
to reflect back her dais. Crystal plates
of petit fours. For which,
history admonishes, she was beheaded.

Source

(Corey Van Landingham is the author of “Antidote” and “Love Letter to Who Owns the Heavens.” )