Randall Mann

Blue

My parents hid

a loopy vid

on the shelf,

The Honey Cup

with Sonny Landham:

my massive ham;

my upshot.

(Years later,

he put on clothes,

starred in Predator,

and ran for KY

senator.)

Sonny stroked

with care

his feathered hair.

I inserted my-

self.

What I wanted:

to cruise

the Live Oaks Mall—

swill, stall,

glorious hole—

stuck in the back

bookstore rack,

my Blueboy tucked

behind Sporting News,

and the torn-

out waxed

bodies—

dead now,

beautiful then.

And then?

We know what then.

We think,

we cannot bear to think,

we do.

Bedtime

On TV, the dully elected

keeper nudges a Zamboni into nice.

Or maybe, a cold farrago. Go,

little Zamboni, break the ice

like a boycott, or a grainy embargo.

No one is yet infected—

the unknown lie, in 1980. Another time!

I’m eight, not too late to survive—

but then, the tide is high. Bedtime

for Bonzo still on loop at the Motel 6—

the valet opens like a wallet. A fix.

Before the snow, on Channel 5:

action suit; killer gown;

western boot; buckle down.

Captain Cook in Hell

During the calm

epilogue of the millennium,

I made my return to the sea,

during a calm.

Some locals appeared. (The sun burned.)

A few slid into a pool

of chemical water, and after a time,

some locals appeared sunburned,

a shallow red that

illuminated the vessel, the bar,

the deck of the QE2, forever docked in Dubai.

In the shallows, that red

looked like a fire dying—

water, a postcard from Empire.

The color of tuberculosis, my gift.

Look at the fire dying.

Ashley Keyser