Writery + You call

Writery

Turns out a cutler makes cutlery I’m not
going to argue with anyone real snails are
still real slow and Kafka loved going to bed
I write in my head mostly turns out my
words have left a trail if we’re friends you
already know I’m shy and difficult look at all
the things I haven’t said to you I take my
bed very seriously stick your hands through

my sentences they capture something I will
soon set fire to party of me will march up to
you very slowly at some point and will cut off
what has separated us and it will take nine
years or thereabouts to say this look at all
our lovery look at what I’ve become after
going to bed

You call

and moonworms crawl from my
mouth. You say my
my laugh is itchy and I
do what that says
knowing how quick a coffin can offer its
claws, how a single scratch can make a
Motel Six beat on the conundrum of your
wagon wheeling away. I
dance on the phone with you to say
keep walking while we’re talking so your
legs don’t stop, keep writing while we’re
fighting in this war called
who’s worth more, which is no battle in the
end, since all of us (you’ve called me, detoxing,
because I am your friend) all of us will be
grateful for whatever crap has
crawled through our holiness, glad for
what has called us to the place where we
lunar ones, we holders of the
holes for all the marbles and we
losers of those cat-eyed spheres
we winners of a wondrous idiocy and we
vintners of tears, we
swillers of the songs that haunt the
shit-cloud that comes
we will be the ones who make the moon
dance, we fuck ups, we marvels
we artists, we chums

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Joseph Byrd’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Punt Volat, Pedestal, South Florida Poetry Journal, DIAGRAM, Clackamas Literary Review, Many Nice Donkeys, and Novus Literary Arts. He’s a 2023 Pushcart Prize nominee, and was in the StoryBoard Chicago cohort with Kaveh Akbar. An Associate Artist in Poetry under Joy Harjo at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, he is on the Reading Board for The Plentitudes.