Hooligan’s Pity
A car turned over the ledge of a cliff,
burning a hole in the lake.
The lip of my dog is cut from a fight
he picked with another dog,
and the scab is hovering on his whiskers,
as if contemplating a suicide to carpet threads.
The straw of my iced coffee knows
it’s more sugar than coffee down there,
and I should be ashamed.
A life on couches is only a sadness
that doesn’t have the will to walk outdoors.
I, Narcissist
My friend said I wasn’t fat, but she was, and we
would go on that way, back and forth.
. —LaWanda Walters, “Goodness in Mississippi”
This mirror, bound devil,
hangs on red walls.
I sift through dreams
and multiply them
. like miracles.
Bring to me
that which we deem beauty
and let it linger.
I know well that you are
the colors of the sky at 7pm.
I know well that I am
second to that, though I would
be last to admit it.
You know me, you know me.
I do not know how
to speak and look and love
the way you do.
The way you are
. is a way,
and I am
a vagabond traveling
what space I will.
And isn’t it suitable
I would find,
as I look into puddles,
myself?
About the Poet
Daniel Lassell is the winner of a William J. Maier Writing Award and runner-up of the 2016 Bermuda Triangle Prize. His recent work is featured or forthcoming in Slipstream, Hotel Amerika, Atticus Review, Split Lip Magazine, Reunion: The Dallas Review, Columbia Journal Online, and The Poet’s Billow. He lives in Fort Collins, Colorado.