by
Jacob Fowler
to drown is to die with something in you,
then what is it to die while driving,
to die in the sand which seems
too foreign to you.
a grandson is at home, just old enough
to be embarrassed that he can’t talk yet,
he was learning what your face
could look like
he saw it, so now it can be in his dreams,
your voice too
your voice which now blends with the screech
of your tires, with the screech of your wife
your voice will live in a tree
in the grandson’s head
a tree which will learn to speak
when watered with black sugars
and grow upside down
if it blossoms those
dry cotton mouth miseries
that fill your last memories
miseries that only a dead man
with a growing voice can bury up
Jacob Fowler is an elementary school teacher in Oakland, CA. He recently graduated from Pitzer College with his BA in World Literature. His work has appeared in Barren Magazine, Ghost City Review, Levee Magazine, Riggwelter Press, and others.
