JUMPING CASTLE
Dear birthday, party for simply existing––I try to be thankful for life, which is so baseline
and frankly I expect more. Neighborhoods in the valley are burning: here, have a cracker
and a big bean. In the face of war and wind, we bookend this day in cake and
affirmations. The jumping castle is a place to store laughter. Some of it shrill, some of it
pink, contemptuous. Protective gear seems out of place, but we are all in need of
barriers. The party is quiet. What words have been withheld, as magicians safely perform
the truth? Confetti lands in the pool, bleeds out its colors. A familiar, repetitive song,
which on this day, doesn’t make sense for me to sing.
FINAL MEDITATION
Before the onset, umbrellas showered the sky––the earth seeing us in herself, a
precipitating gesture.
The country is dry, like the surface of the moon but with refineries.
Something commercial lacing the blue to help it function or conveniently collapse.
We prayed for rain, and the lake uprooted our house. The times demand precision to
expressed desires.
Moon, you try to regulate earth. I appreciate it, but try harder.
Witnessing the fall of a prominent boulder: so many bricks through a window.
Some days the major triumph is light through a few leaves.
Sunset’s brilliance indicative of an error. We build a wall around it and call it another
country.
The wall moves around in space without purpose, like an astronaut with a watering can.
The stars we see have already died, but for now they exist in minor, but beautiful,
episodes of light.
We have discovered an umbrella, but it’s hesitant to shade.
The sky opens to another sky that we have yet to name.
My chest parts, becomes the earth––I am the rise, I am the fall.
PARTY TIME
Show me the red flag, and I will follow,
my hat wide and ridiculous, to keep pace
with the ever-expanding sun. The broadcast
has erased me, replaced me with static
and fraudulent histories––always shifting
into a current self and comparing
the priors like nearly-identical
shades of paint. My inner walls
and windows, I demand them dressed in gold––
may they conspicuously embody
the legends we have lost. When grief is endless,
it dissolves, finds its way into every
meal, which is celebrated––the glass recycled into
bread, a waiter balancing slices
of ocean on his tray. If the dishware
screams recession, I’ll be kneeling in champagne.
Bubbles, lift me, place me in unfamiliar lands,
hot glaciers flowing through me––
nevermind, take me home.
Quickly, count the truths I’m holding up.
If you can feel yourself exist, raise your hand.
This is a vote, an expression––
not a question or lack of clarity.
By the shore, we wash the dishes,
reach our hands into the land, lift the corners,
peel it back like an inferior can of meat.
I saw myself beneath it all––selfless
and endless, in theory. So much being asked,
and when I refused to answer,
they took the answers anyway.
Must I praise their hospitality?
This town would be lovely if it had a different sky.
Drew Krewer is author of the chapbook Ars Warholica (Spork Press). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics, Diagram, LIT, and Dream Pop, among other publications. He holds an MFA from the University of Arizona and lives in the desert.