Current
Issue
Volume 12.1
Gabriel Costello
—
Entitlement Reform
What I want is different from what I have.
Leafless trees separated the frontage road from the warehouses
the landscape repeats itself.
Inside, a man dreamed up forgettable songs sung
back to himself within the echo.
We lived indoors during the winter.
It did a little to hold the temperature up,
the scent of the cinders, the up draft
carrying some faint smoke out of the chimney.
Not enough of a signal to decipher, smoke
eventually interrupted by air.
There was some confusion over the height of the sky. The mirror factory went bankrupt
and a colleague and I walked through notating which mirror still held a reflection
and could be wholesale liquidated.
In the breakroom, a steel box within the warehouse with tile floors
and half full vending machines, a police chase played over and over
on the twenty inch tv.
Everyone returned to their brown bags
when the suspect was tackled on the highway’s shoulder.
That outcome is clearly unfortunate
for the affected people. The forfeiture unit
divided the stolen goods amongst themselves.
To want implies risk. I would risk so much
to be next to you. I try to interrupt myself. To be what I haven’t been.
Watching the signal turn red, the camera recording my license plate
was itself purchased via the state’s credit card
I had accumulated three or more tickets, final determinations, in writing.
I watched the cloud separate above the rifle range, wondering how much lead
had made its way into the dirt over the years. We re racked and it was more about
being close than being on target. The rifle repeated into the target
but found a way to bore fresh wounds.
The birds all flew out of the trees at once, a lagging indicator of the gun’s report.
Gabriel Costello is a poet from the far south side of Chicago. He is currently in the final year of his MFA at the University of Virginia. His poetry has appeared previously in Gulf Coast, Quarterly West, New Letters, Afternoon Visitor and elsewhere. His book reviews have appeared in Meridian. He is a pessimist by nature.
