Friday Love Poems: Steve Subrizi!

BACKSTROKE

I lay down on the cold wood in the dark.

My roommate’s cat stepped on me and purred.

She has cat asthma. I thought about snorkeling.

There are islands that only one of us will ever visit—

you barreling over the sand near Greece, chucking a frisbee through the rain,

me with my body hanging beneath the sun like a complicated fruit.

DEDICATION

Here is a series of ugly sounds that I make to beckon you near me.


Here is the hot stink of the Tupperware kept in my chest.


Here is the shirt that I wear so that I look like a person.


Here are the pants that I wear so that I walk like an animal.


Here is a bouquet of sparrows at your feet.


Here are the keys to my throat.

Here is your portrait in piano wire,

            in a squid’s last ink,

            in digital.


Here is the satellite that I put you inside.
Here is the satellite where I live.


Here are five stupid fingers.


I know where your left shoulder lives.
I go there when I sleep.


My imagination is a naked animal, giving you a glare

like you’re the one who ought to know better.


My ambition is the same animal with longer hair.
It will live in my house forever and ever.


Here is the misinformation to which I have committed.


Here is the bottle you were searching for, devoid of content.


Here is a letter to go inside of the bottle;

this is what it says. Please,

will you put it away inside of your room?
Will you take it with you into space?

Steve Subrizi is a New Englander. He has performed his work at dive bars and lecture halls across America. His poems have appeared in such places as The Scrambler, NAP, Muzzle, Monday Night, and NOÖ Journal. His e-chapbook, Newly Wild Hedgehog, is available for free from NAP. He plays in a band called The Crazy Exes from Hell.

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www.stevesubrizi.com

www.thecrazyexesfromhell.com