Live Cover

The maximum penalty
for breaking news is the loss

of a friend. A bit of a wing
in the tea: what was the name

of the flower on the east side
of our childhood home?

A spell of relief: charade
as post officer and flood

markers won’t be stops
on the route. Otherwise,

our horses mad down the stretch
issue news in their thunder -

immediacy without alembic,
all four feet off the ground

Ancient Mess

I took the wrong
way two times before turning
back to find the bridge
over the brook. But
I can’t find it. How did 
I lose a brook? Forget it,
the sun on my face on a 
warm November Monday
on this schmeck of dust
and fuel. But where did 
the path go? I call ‘hurt.’  
I mumble and burp.
For what? What did I say?
What I meant to say lands
in my skull and smarts.
I am trying to make of my love
a polished stone I can hold 
in my hand and throw at the sky.

Dump Failures

I tip the trash in the blue
and the glass in the black.
I put the VHS where the paint
goes; put the paint can
in ‘lectronics. Get your
head out of your ass,
a man driving a front loader
yells. I will never talk to you 
again, I say. The man stops
the loader. What did you say,
he yells. Do you know
who I am, he says. 
I was just trying 
to say how I feel, I say.
Well, your anger isn’t welcome
here, he says, Keep it up
and you will be barred
from the dump. I forgot
a box of stuff at home,
I say. Well why don’t you
go back home and get it.
I think I will, I say. Good, 
he says, go home. I will,
I say. He flips me off,
drives off. I stand 
alone in the fetid breeze,
considering the fall out,
waiting on my next mistake.

Dan Chelotti is the author of x (McSweeney’s 2013) and two chapbooks. Recent poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Post Road, Saga City, and West Branch. He lives in western Massachusetts with his family.