2 poems from 1977-2050
We went to the ocean. I went swimming in the ocean for the first time and when I came out you were no longer there. I saw a family I didn’t recognize and I started walking toward them. My legs were covered in blood. Are you our new son? they said. I wanted a landmark. I wanted to go home to be called for. I closed my eyes and I was swimming again this time in a sea of hot milk cutting myself on the seaweed and when I came out you were there buried to your shoulders in the snow. It was winter, 1884. I was hunting with my rifle in the bitter wind. You were a rabbit starving for grasses. I run for president but no one is around. I yell Vote for me! Vote for me! but no one yells back. After a while I stumble upon some corpses with fallen-off heads and I’m going around collecting all the heads in a large basket. This will be my first act as president: collecting all the heads in a large basket and then setting the heads down with candles inside miles apart from each other across the empty expanse to the ocean.