It gets More than Better

By James Caroline

Tall, southern, wetland eyes
pulled up from the kiss of mud
my favorite door swung open.
He walks in again and I can smell
the buttermilk
the slow rise of his mother realizing
she had something special.
Something to rise from the war and set
to the world and I imagine her, like my mother
teaching him to fight–


First, you remember everything. You watch
and you wait, angel
until their back isn’t turned.


He orders a dark beer, claims it’s
spiced, a wash of currant in common glass.
I can see the kitchen heave
blackened catfish, the new cock ring
a sheet-less air mattress where we leave it
dripping piss and cum.
There is a hollow in the cheek of those broken
a slick to the palm of those who grew up gun
drag race, cliff dive, who thought
they might kill me if I tell.
A black eyed prayer
just let me make it out of here alive
and here, this bed
moved between all those flight trails
gas stations and the truck drivers, kind
enough to say
Heading back to your family or running away from them?
Not that it matters.


Not that it matters.
But I wanna say, Mamma
he knows how to shoot.
I can smell the stilled wind in his chest hair
the thick a tide would leave.
I can feel the claw trap of his ass from 5 feet away
the way his nipples would butter my lips
his rise when I cross my legs to stay.


I am not afraid.
I am body and body and body.
I could be gone.
I am so far from gone.