Poetry: Selections From Will Russo

Edge

 

Speak and spit into the hand, the underside.

Stroke the long spine of pleasure. Why?

To prologue the only thing worth prolonging.

Knot up. Take silk, take rage. Spread palms

over the hinges of the groin. This lack

a fulcrum, a switch being flicked. Is gifted,

is teased. Please hold me there.

 

 

 

Pong

 

Slurp, gulp.

Long shot

off the rim,

arc the wind

upsets. Bounce,

hobble, buckle

and shell. Ghost

cups pulled. Wash-

bucket water. Gross

fizz cans the table,

triangles deplete

by one. Glug glug,

speed swallow.

Cash flows. Dudes

bulge all over. A leg

up on, a ball

almost out. Cannon,

basket, dart. Hollow

taps. Easy holes.

Easy nudes. Every inch

an inch longer.

Morning After

 

Fed him and wept

over a farm-fresh carton.

 

Generous

with tongue, time

and sometimes even pay.

 

Terms I already knew

checking what he knew—doing so

he’d know I knew. 

 

When I opened raw,

an oyster, dog chow, I felt

a scab rip, fingered

to infect. Funny that

 

wet misshapen thing he snapped—

I allowed it near me

like Scylla, some siren.

 

 

 

Leap Day

 

K was slippery, singsongy

smooth-cheeked or stubble-brushed.

His apparentness

 

splattered down walls. Flirt.

Always loosening his belt.

Smoke sprang from his tip

 

and crawled over my scarf. Blocks between us

called, shrank. Late,

 

video games on mute,

mother didn’t know who I had

in my room. Pen, apple,

 

lighter, foil. I ran my shower. 

I shaved and rubbed into the sheet

 

he sweat through. To have been

steeped in something his. The night

he died, he clogged the extra minutes. 

Are You in Crisis?

 

The child comes to spend

time with the ailing parent.

 

That’s what we prepare for

copulating. Insurance.

 

~

 

A lot of dependence

and loveliness. Rooms

 

suffocated with departure.

 

Endless chemical

burns to nostrils.

 

~

 

Who watches over my bed

nights—sloughed 

 

sick-to-death

 

vomitorium. The capable?

 

~

 

Love pats. Hot lines

 

cried into the phone by the window.

 

Enough grief, enough

stillness invites me 

 

ungodly.

 

~

 

Anyone can spawn. Gays get a lot

but not that. 

 

Interlope. Dust it off. Face it

 

you’re not young.

 

~

 

Gay kids get love now—

give and receive it. Public

 

kisses, public threats. Duvet divots,

 

duets.

 

~

 

Smoke and expulsion, a struck

flamer. Matchhead billows.

 

Ignited—dawn by fire

 

leather loveseat by glass.

It Ends Here

 

The family. The drama,

the spills and cracked

hinges. The grief 

mistaken. I’ve found

a way in my skin

that won’t split to mix.

It splatters fat flakes of me

dissolving snow

on a cheek. The end—not

for any with dignity, but for me

and for you by extension. Merit

badge: weight shifts onto the chair,

the cane, the walker. Tibia

meant to mend ball to socket.

We spin on

junctions, lean on such

small tissue. Break from it.

Respawn another creature.

Take from me when I am gone.

 

 

Recollection

 

Aft the boat knelt

into tide, its bow

tipped skyward.

 

We bailed knee-

deep, reaching in

with buckets.

 

The disc of

the moon rippling

on the sole.

 

 

 

Believer

 

Don’t fall little bird.

 

Don’t burst at the bottom.

 

A body’s a fragile edifice—

still egg.

 

Face the dirt—

put it in the dirt.

 

Find some anything to grip.

Be believer.

 

Famous fakers make themselves

disgusting. Destroy the vessel. Peel

back horrendous flaps.

 

Wing. Pupil. Bead of sweat.

Bolt metal driven into sinew, tendon.

 

Flies swarm smashed anythings on sidewalks.

 

Stuck in our tubes as we all may be.

 

 

 

 

 

Will Russo is the author of two chapbooks: Dreamsoak (Querencia Press, 2023) and Glass Manifesto, winner of the 2023 Rick Campbell Chapbook Award from Anhinga Press. Recent work has appeared in pioneertown, The Blue Mountain Review, and Impossible Task. He is poetry reviews editor at Another Chicago Magazine and received my MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.