Three Poems by Joseph Felkers

SABBATH

On the first day God said let there be / light, & ten atoms / shattered across the first skyline & made / earth’s first penny slot machine. Neon rattling / between subshells to the hum / of a lakelit evening. / Vacancy no vacancy. / God separated / the light from the bad & the diet  Mountain / Dew machines squealed, empty / & hungry for one last night of aspartame. On the second  day God created / land & so your body / was born of soot & ash & tooth. You / not so human yet, still / whining for the darkness / & its reunion. But on the third day he decided to mature / ovaries, singing the hymn / only flowers can know & he said / flora. You decided that that would be / your name. On the fourth, night & day / emulsified one last time & so day four / was officially day four. Bus tires screeched / with the stench of oak / & God was happy / & so you were happy. / On the fifth day God whispered / fauna so now the creature of your garden could become daydream. All were happy: fox &/ hen, but you, man of query / were still not whole. On the sixth day you were / finally made in the back seat of a yellow / taxi named River. Prophecies will only chew / you out on a day of rest, but for you—rest / will never come. For you, God has created a woman to hold / & you'd better enjoy / her while she lasts. For you had better not bite / the hand that made you from soot & ash & feather. The hand that bends / you over a cosmic armchair & says enough / is enough. / For you, the seventh day will never come. 

TRANSUBSTANTIATE 

Father says open & you say how 

wide? I have been born from God

to God, light to light, true God

from true blood. I want you to tell me

how to wash your hands with the hair

of your stories. A parable is only a parable

 until a candle is made from it, & you are only covered

until you can call yourself absolved. Not made,

 
consubstantial with the father.  

I believe in another Capricorn coming down

 from a cosmic slur and kissing my forehead.

 
I believe that one day, your children and their children

will exist no longer but as steeped blood and flesh. I believe that when

Father says bloom, you will say

where?

TARGET PRACTICE

Boys in blue coats

singing sexualities they’ll never proclaim

/

or know to be true. 

How do you write elegies

for trauma? Tell me how I’m supposed to write odes

to ice-slit lips, when I can’t even make the sound

//

of gunfire on paper. I’ve never been good

at making myself into myself again.

///

After each cell replaces itself, I still can’t say I’m clean.

Here, this is how a Catholic boy

can turn blue. Prochoiceprochoicepro

choose wisely when you cast

for regulation. This is how to make 

gunfire on paper: vote second amendment rights.

 
////

You have options, Joseph

& thank you God for giving me them.

If I have the liberty to choose 

if my father shoots

/////

or gets shot, let me choose the result

that hurts more. Blue lives might matter too,

but that’s no basis for me to write a poem about.