ONE OF US IS THE KILLER
But all of us are covered in blood.
We get trapped in basements and attics.
We get trapped in boiler rooms and snow drifts
and barns and parking structures
and relationships and ditches
and debts and memories and jobs.
This becomes our lives.
We get kind of okay with the world.
Our numbers are thinned
through murder or plain old death
but people keep having babies
and we stay horrified and busy.
We mop up the blood and people
keep on bleeding like they do.
ROOMFUL OF PORTALS
In this room are 1000 portals.
Some go to silos.
Others go to the woods.
One takes you to the inside of a deer.
The inside of a deer
is hot and dark
but not bad.
The inside of a black hole
is cold and dark.
You’re nowhere in particular
and you contain everything terrible and beautiful:
Beer in zero gravity.
Burning leaves.
All your friends and
a small dog named Shadow
you’re not allowed to pet
because he’ll pee.
***
Brad Liening is the author of Deep State Come Shining (Publication Studio Hudson). He lives in Minneapolis.
***
image: MM Kaufman
Rejection Letters 