Cu Chulainn, the summer disfigures me. When the soil swells with that impossible heat and the air clings to my alveoli and sticks you collect to, as some residue, some form of subtle irritation lining my pores and blossoming

It’s north a bit, the mountains brown and pink behind it. The dirt, the scrub brush, all things dry and ready, smell like tinder. Like an unlit match. Things creak out here that you can’t see. Call out across

I might have prayed, but I don’t remember. There were three of them in the truck, their sick slick, raw chicken faces, shining. They held position next to me. There was no one else. No one but us, and

Tiny jeweled pawn, all eyes, mouth and legs half-sprung for jumping. You could have been a radio star if the dice hadn’t rolled the radio’s way, eyes closed, a crooner swaying in an unseen green tuxedo. Instead you crouch

Beauty has no jurisdiction in the sleepwalking morning. Creaking joints and eyes not awoken from slumber quite yet brave the day, unarmed and unassuming the sun tickles the newborn sky until it’s ruddy. A new day blushes and begins.

You walk the moral high road While we sit far below Yelling for you to jump This was originally published in Spring 2018 edition of The Helix.