Hello Again


I have no memory of Washington fording the Delaware
to return the Lenape girl's lost corn-doll, but clickbait
flows to the ocean and would never lie to me.
You won't believe how the cherry tree begged for touch,
every gleam of blade-light and lightning
aimed at the tree scorched the ground saying Yes, Yes,
and it was true come next harvest, the new generation
of cherry trees bubbled up from the dirt.

No faith but in motion, I've no trust for the stationary,
the microphone that throws its voice beneath
the billowed hem of curtain. Is that a TV in your glasses,
or are you just bored to see me? Farther north the sirens bleat
out to no response—maybe the dropping of a few pine
needles—but the satellite signal comes in strong, the dish
supplicating on the cabin roof, the stunted Y of its form
a Yes for raindrops, cold and many, much data.

The mounted moose-head is such soft violence,
wears such a humble crown, washed of blood,
an earthen hand and its pair cupping the sky to praise.
Eyes large and empty as post-its. Note to self: Don't ever die
where your remains can be found, mute, where your limbs
can be stationed in service of interrogatives, pointed at the gold
cone searchlight of headline. You run-on sentence,
unstoppable corpse of suggestion.





Brandon Amico lives in North Carolina. His poems have appeared in The Adroit Journal, The Awl, Booth, The Cincinnati Review, New Ohio Review, and Verse Daily, among others. You can follow him on Twitter, @amicob, or visit him at www.brandonamico.com.