Next to Godliness
BY CLAUDIA CORTESE
There’s a maw in my throat. I can’t love anything
beyond the meadow. I plant teeth there, not for quarters, I want
a top-down popping red car that jets me through eye-hurt
sun streets. In the meadow, moonlight picks its teeth on scraggly trees,
bats dish dash like nervous hands. In my dream, the meadow
is always hot pink. I slap and slap the slap bracelet,
wear my wrist welts everywhere. I am my immigrant parent’s
American. The Ramones is so loud I don’t hear the whistle—
my car crosses tracks one second before the train passes. I die
on the barn floor, and I die the day mom says, Losing your brother
wasn’t an accident, and I die at meadow’s edge—
the ground so spitshine clean so snowy fresh.
