~ Delta Poetry Review ~

Vincent A. Cellucci

well before the brink

of rebirth leaning in the trailer threshold

we’re covered in sweat and sewage

the crowbars nest on the driveway

our gloves roost on top

ripped and sopping

long past useless

next to the cheap masks discarded

after the first of four layers of floor

in favor of unencumbered respiration

the stench doesn’t dissipate anyway

we only believe in demolishing

and the delirium of desperation

we joke about the snake eric

pulled out the drywall

how he ran shrieking

as the black coil landed on his feet

and jeannie   raised in brasil

came running with the machete

as the men cowered in the corner

looking out for any trail or tail

of the only thing spared that day

certainly not the hand-delivered

peanut butter and jellies we savored

from sweet unflooded not-neighbors

how the juice boxes they delivered

tasted sweeter their citrus heightened

by the heat how the cool ranch doritos

may have finally lived up to their name

how the hole in kelly’s foot

bled so gently     silent in her boot

because she didn’t want to make

a peep amongst the homes now heaps

my thoughts turn to bill motioning

discreetly over his shoulder in the bed

of the pickup between curb runs

gonna need some chains or a lift

for that felled horse bloated out back

a move-in ready home to flies spinning

around just like the world still goes

on an average 100-degree day

of digging your house out of its grave

something we do enough people

have terms for it like crazy or resiliency

and I must confess the disasters get old

especially those you don’t own

one starts to form addictions

to things like heartbreak and abandon

and it feels like the fates and outside world

are force-feeding your heart feces

but we’ve put it all in perspective

like one has to in the hereafter

there’s a few more hours of sunlight

to gut to so we savor any hint of a breeze

and file back in knowing the pauses

we give and receive are the sturdiest parts

Vincent A. Cellucci wrote Absence Like Sun (Lavender Ink, 2019) and An Easy Place / To Die (CityLit Press, 2011). He edited Fuck Poems: An Exceptional Anthology (Lavender Ink, 2012). He also has three collaborative titles: come back river (Finishing Line Press, 2014); a ship on the line (Unlikely Books, 2014), which was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award; and the recently released ~getting away with everything (Unlikely Books, 2021). Vincent performed Diamonds in Dystopia, an interactive poetry web app at SXSW in 2017, and the poem was anthologized in Best American Experimental Writing 2018. He works at the TU Delft Library.