Cecilia Vicuña, “Basuritas” (2014) at proyectosLA, 2017 (Galeria Patricia Ready, Santiago de Chile) (photo by Elisa Wouk Almino/Hyperallergic)
Unspooling the Dead’s Electrons
Fungal vein of lightning
you crept inside my father
twice through his umbrella
to the ground quickly
as a more serious sleep
and preparation for cancer’s end
That a day could copy
like graphite’s rub
over engraved symbols
this quiet which is his
but leant and to us left
unfixed this onward slipping
An onward in him fixed
What else could I do but burn
Carcass of the Workhorse
A dark rag like an animal
on a rural highway
twists
with a fear of being
Picking it up
I have to imagine the future
of the person
who dropped it
Lessons a silent father might share
as if giving more
to carry
with the ways to carry
* * *
Daniel Moysaenko, a Ukrainian-American poet, is the author of the chapbook New Animal (H_NGM_N Books, 2015). Other work has appeared or is forthcoming in Conduit; Forklift, Ohio; The Journal; Pleiades; Sixth Finch; West Branch; and elsewhere. He holds an MFA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is pursuing a poetry PhD at Florida State University.
