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by Jeremy Radin Soon I will be older & it appears I have, in my tepid afternoon, become too serious. The hyena in me whines for sick meat. The tart weeks of winter gush out of my throat. I’m in love again & so find myself screwing a mountain of bread, leaving my lard on in the river. A bird lands in an open book, eats the word omen, & falls to the floor. It seems there’s no time for tea anymore—only these cookies baked in tank engines, bitter & rigid, gobbled down between deaths. The fiddle-fig in the corner of my apartment leans toward this writing, toward the false rabbi who lies & lies, pretending at intelligence & grace, who secedes from his nation in a cozy armchair. My primary protest has to do with the fact that there is no movie in which a hyena is the romantic hero. In which a hyena in a dark tuxedo, dark plum, kneels before a lounging gazelle to light her cigarette. This is very significant to me & my goal is to impart that significance to you without necessarily experiencing it myself. It’s all about you, listener. Everything I do, for you, for you. I vow your singular satisfaction. I will not have your orgasm. You are comelier than I am, & far more breathing. It was my birthday, you know, when I began this missive, & now it is again. They keep coming, despite what I try, despite this wreckage both vessel & destination. Something laughs in the hills, devours all I’ve left behind, shreds of longing hang from jaws as crushing as its absence anyway I’m a Sagittarius.  photo by Christine Donlon Jeremy Radin is a poet, actor, and teacher. His poems have appeared (or are forthcoming) in Gulf Coast, The Cortland Review, The Journal, Vinyl, Passages North, and elsewhere. He is the author of two collections of poetry, Slow Dance with Sasquatch (Write Bloody Publishing, 2012) and Dear Sal (not a cult press, 2017). He lives in Los Angeles where he once sat next to Carly Rae Jepsen in a restaurant. Follow him @germyradin |