Bojan Louis will be reading at the E-Verse Equinox Reading Series on March 22nd. Come on out.

I.

New sun asks:
be nothing
have nothing

—send opened
your whole being.
Only part of me

is blessed, a body exerted
after long hours, responsibility,
and need to ease tremors.

– – –

The last of March’s
welfare won’t go past
the eighteenth, hunger pains

dull month to month.
We’ve burned the final
log from February’s half-

cord; son’s school books
claimed lost are enough
to get the fire going.

– – –

My youth wasn’t warm enough
to stone prairie dogs,
skin and eat.

The drive past the flats
no longer makes instant
noodles cheaper.

Mornings blind when throats throw
heat—stutter steps skid linoleum.
Untouched eggs feed me, forget me.

II.

Mom’s a woman with
red skin and long receipts,
an aluminum facade

of sparkle talk and sheen.
Measuring steps: easy win,
sudden guess.

Sissy boys
tear and candy don’t
take care.

– – –

There isn’t a nickel
in any cushion—
skeletal-hair remains

collect all over.
Red drips redder
than my skin,

redder than swallowed
embarrassment,
than slap—freezing feet.

– – –

A dark hall’s corner,
a damask of lines,
the call-to mom uses

telling me, I don’t add up.
I penguin walk and cross
feet.  In grass I pull

my knees up;
still, the grass
grows toward me.

III.

The coin-fare for
a cross-town bus a rosary
for time on my own.

Slow approach on
the upcoming stop a heavy
let, a stiffened step

on concrete
right-angled silhouettes
the butane flame dawn.

– – –

The water’s
hot and
there’s light:

the home
encloses a
son lost

until 6:30 brings
noise of traffic
delays and brewing.

– – –

I get
little out
of this,

pays ungrateful,
I eat little—
my eyes bulge.

I don’t know
the woman
letting time slip.