—Adam Fell, from Catastrophizer (Sixth Finch Books, 2022)
The happiest you is sipping
their third margarita in a tropical expanse of
cover just beyond every gun’s range // But
there is also this you / this you / right here /
the margarita-less one / hip-deep in the
never-ending snow / surrounded by guns with
laser precision & infinite range // The you
convinced they have no value but still believing
in the devalued currency of kindness //
Which is what makes you the most valuable
person I know // You refuse the commutation
of grief / of pain / of the illegible fear
collecting in your calves like sick blue
electricity // You refuse to shed your feral water
// You dance your pabst-drunk post-punk
dance until your family tries to stop you /
& then just peace the fuck out & walk to
the arboretum / the bodega / with the secret
smile of a woman carrying her abusive
husband’s severed head in her backpack //
You feed the red-raw squall of each late
winter’s birth / interrupt the coatless girls
arguing in the snow & remind them to never
leave each other at the party alone // No
matter what is said in the pulse of the
moment // We don’t have to fight each other
for survival on this star-drunk night / or
any // We don’t have to freeze to death /
alone / in the empty parking lot / the
stubbed-out alley / or drown alone / in the
car / clawing at the automatic windows // We
don’t have to outgrow this tender age of
tendon pink that’s being stripped from us &
glitched to grayer meats // We don’t have to
tolerate thorns or pinches // not the blood-
snip of our endless gullings // not the white
museum our families try to make of this
country / their ragged pelts matted with the
blood of a thousand stolen faces / their white
vessels filled with a dulling gleam / like salt-
washed bones washed up on the far edge of the
