Poetry By
Troy Cunio
Published on: 11/25/2015
Cosmic Forces beyond Our Comprehension
A lizard dropped from a treebranch onto my windshield at a stoplight today. His reptilian eyes were emotionless and his suction cup toes were pure fear but his smile said, Kowabunga! I rolled down my window to grab him but he jumped to the passenger side as the light changed. His frail green body turned and flopped in the windtunnel of an '05 Accord's acceleration. By the next intersection I was beginning to feel a strange affection for the little guy. When I was a kid I'd capture lizards just like him, keep them in empty fish tanks, feed them lettuce and butterflies until they escaped or died. Now, the way he clung to my car like a surfer hanging ten on the gnarliest of storm surges, this lizard looked like redemption for my crimes against reptile-kind. I slowed to a turtle-crawl, ignored the honks until I came to a bagel shop driveway. I stopped the engine, but my passenger kept quivering at roughly 2000 RPM. I grabbed him by the torso— years of practice herp snatching, no escape artist appendages twisting in my fingertips— and dropped him. My buddy scurried off not only with his tail but a tale to tell his spawn— the time he mastered the machine of swift squishy death, swallowed the force of a hurricane like a housefly, proved that not all hairy giants of inconceivably titanic proportion are totally indifferent to the plight of lesser mortals, the time he became a legend, a Promethean among anoles. As I pulled out of the parking lot — and I swear it was an accident— I heard the faintest crunch beneath my tires.
Published on: 9/23/2015
Pygmalion
I want to run my hands over your calves as if my fingertips were hammers, my nails gentle chisels on stone. As if your flesh were marble and I am freeing you from a block of flesh. Love is a subtractive art. Every conversation or caress another movement closer to what we want each other to be. I want to admire your eyes as if they could never break their gaze, never look away from mine. I want to put my ear to your collarbone as if your marrow was of the same substance as your skin. As if I could hear the spaces between heartbeats, and they lasted forever. I want to whisper secrets to you when I wake in the night, knowing that neither of us will remember them in the morning. I want to kiss you like I'm surprised your lips are warm.
Published on: 9/17/2015
Notes from the Promised Land: Drive
I-15, about ten miles outside of Kenosh. Been tailgating a Walmart truck for two hours. Stop for gas at a rustic log cabin with a Subway logo over the door. The cottonwoods sprouting from the mountains like a five o'clock shadow. The dust smelling like dinosaur bones. Blue haired girl with canyon skin frowning at passerby. Think of skinwalkers. Think of coyotes. Think of history. Buy a cream filled Idaho Spud, World Famous, Trademark. Take a bite. Think of the desert. Start the engine. Think of sandstone. Think of stratigraphy. Drive. Drive. Drive.
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