for the buckshot rattling through frontier
organs, for scary story precedents, wincing
forthright at semblances of unibrow or the beastly
shadow of reproductive health. Let’s play a logic game.
Let’s assume you’re game like pronghorn moose.
You can’t hunt them legally due to low populations,
there aren’t enough fertile moose wombs
for mating seasons. This all might give you a semi-
automatic erection when you shove in the clip.
Plateaus of majesty beget tableaus of agony, someone
changing the grayishness of old flower water.
You hole up in an avalanche, eat the daylights
out of fried chicken, claim yourself birthday boy
by your lonesome. A Tommy gun is the best
filibuster. A testament to shaking the tenements.
To shaking filaments from their electric
obligations. The enclave of your forest cabin
infested with vampire bats. You wear snazzy
bowties to blend in. The American Dream is best realized
by shoving your success in your father’s face, by
lazing unsightly things from blessed bodies.

*

Stephen Danos is author of Playhouse State (H_NGM_N Books, 2012). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in American Letters & Commentary, Anti-, Bateau, cream city review, Court Green, Forklift Ohio, and elsewhere. He is editor-in-chief of the online journal Pinwheel, assistant editor for YesYes Books, and lives in Seattle.