Two Poems

Poem

after Chris Slaughter

In a violent sky I gunpowder in a sentence with you.
This house owes me: I once held walls.
Now my back is a mistake you made from scratch.

​​I see the barbed wires these pieces crawled through to come see you,
past the raggedy sunrise, your co-defendant
past the stare your brother looks at you with,
your daughter, your blood, a flammable swagger from a woman’s head.​

​But I can’t remember how to walk like you.
When I broke your silence, it tucked
a gun in my hand.
As if it could change the truth.



[Seven Deadly Sins: New York Edition]

You wouldn’t believe
the emergencies I’ve walked past—
I’ve refused change to beggars
with leftovers burning a hole in my bag,
I have snarled at fat men
who called me beautiful,
feigned sick in lieu of the birthdays—
too far on the train, too far—felt lust
crackle in a subway car: hands touching
on the pole; I let them, I let them—
I have plugged my ears, shoved tourists
& given the dirtiest of looks:
oh you who eat tuna on the train,
oh you holder-of-doors, the god-sized
width of your strollers, I am sorry, I was wrathful;
I have eyeballed the shoes of countless
handsome women & let a competition
grow in me, I have stolen from the lost
& found & picked flowers
I did not grow
& as for the woman
whose headscarf bobbed with Christ
has risen—I bowed my head
& went back to my book

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Katie Byrum hails from Kentucky. She currently lives in Brooklyn, NY, where she spends her time writing poems and dodging pigeons. You can find recent work online at Forklift, Ohio; Gulf Coast; La Fovea, and iO: a journal of new American poetry.