By: Patrick Wilcox
Six killed in interstate chain pileup outside Flagstaff
We spent entire lifetimes wondering
what wounds looked like when not beaten back
by headlights, why they begged for blood
and more deft blood, who they wrote
their last love letters to. Every billboard I’ve seen
along the highway could not escape the pinch
of my forefinger and thumb. If I couldn’t have you
I would settle for half-drunk phone calls
cast over the ever-healing bruise
of midnight. Every town we’ve sped through
was ours in a past life. I spent entire lifetimes
trying and failing to hold you closer. Every night
I tried to stitch our bodies together
but only left them roadkill along the earthwork
of what had once been a horizon, something
worth a picture untaken. Remember that night
we didn’t dance in Kansas? We bled out just enough
language so that there was no word for love
or loneliness, just measure
and more pale measure beating
and beating
and beating. Remember
those midnight miles we didn’t open our eyes
through Virginia? We spun out in the fog
of our own lackluster, crossing country
and more akimbo country. We guessed
which way, just past the hilltop, our road
would break. Left or right, it never
really mattered. I shouldn’t have,
like all those tiny billboards,
tried to keep you. All the miles we have
before home
couldn’t wake us up. With only
our bodies we inked
onto real maps
unreal highways.
The insane history of how American paranoia ruined and censored comic books
By now the city has stamped across its retaining walls,
sidewalks, gutters, garages, and newsstands other names
for me: Captain Inferior, The Inhuman Eyesore,
though, who are you but me in a sleeker suit? You know
better than to call me sidekick. You know how quickly
the blood in my wounds coagulate post-cigarette, how alien
I look unmasked, how small uncaped. You are a square-jawed
saint, a gadget-packed utility belt, a low-jacked, rocket-launching,
net-shooting pony car. But, am I not your son? We saved
a child from a house fire I watched you set, captured
a criminal kingpin and in a railyard left out of headlines
murdered him with moon laser precision. The city
loves you. Why won’t you tell them you know so much
about my threadbare heart because it is bright and noxious
and so much like yours: its trashbag parka pericardium
and hollowed-out compartments that rush blood to every
apartment and penthouse in the city, for the city. What will
it feel like when my heart finally stops? Will it wake me at night
in its penultimate beat just before the room howls quiet
and you regret for the first time our exodus? Am I not
your son, your only son? What else can I be
but a signal in the sky?
10 things estate sales won’t tell you
When the phone rang I thought, this is it. One last
late night porch light smoke. One last dawn torn
open by sunrise. And again, when the car
pulled up. One last morning
news report. One last broken breakfast dish. One last
look into empty attic boxes. And again, when you spoke
through a knock on the door. One last
spilled drink. And again, and again, and again
when I answered with a glance
through the peephole. This is it. One last
memory lapse. One last lost voice. One last
spilled song
empty song
dawn song
odd song.
And finally, when you waited
in the doorway, perched
like a crow on a power line.
One last beginning.
Patrick Wilcox is from Independence, Missouri, a large suburb just outside Kansas City best known for the Oregon Trail, Harry S. Truman, and in more recent decades, production of methamphetamine. He studied English and Creative writing at the University of Central Missouri. He is a three-time recipient of the David Baker Award for Poetry and 2020 honorable mention of Ninth Letter’s Literary Award in Poetry. His work has appeared in Maudlin House, Knockout, Quarter After Eight, Bangalore, and MacGuffin. He currently teaches English Language Arts at William Chrisman High School.
Behind the Scenes
The titles of all three poems are ripped from national headlines. I wanted to explore the relationship news media has with our private lives.
In other words, I just wanted to explore the story inside of the story.
Once I stumbled on the headline for “Six killed in interstate chain pileup outside Flagstaff” I had this image of a couple on a road trip constantly churning in my mind. They see their relationship reflected in the violent and uncertain imagery they pass by on their journey across the country. Whether or not they are the cause of or victims in the pileup isn’t clear, but they are exhausted and stuck in a half-conscious state trying to stay awake. Most days I think they make it home safe.
“The insane history of how American paranoia ruined and censored comic books” was born out of my obsession with the lunacy of superheroes, particularly Superman. I wanted to write a poem that was an amalgamation of several hero tropes from the perspective of their sidekick, who is, in this case, looked down upon due to his failure to assimilate into society. Halfway through writing this poem, I realized the relationship between a sidekick and hero mirrored that of a child and parent which is when the poem found its direction.
Finally, “10 things estate sales won’t tell you” attempts to peek into the hidden history of a home. The speaker is about to be taken to assisted living and tries his best to hold onto his memories before his mind shakes them loose like leaves from a tree and he is stolen away by an undefined, ominous “you”. I’m not sure why that senile man popped into my head, but my heart breaks for him.