Justin Howerton

Castaway

At night the ocean
is a crater stars
fall into & out of &
I think I’d like to go.
Wrong is always a verb
same as water or cuts
or condos which sit
to my right all
the people in them
falling into each other
with barbed-wire kisses
calling for the copper cutters
shouting let go. Cicadas
behind me lunging towards
the boxing ring of a porch light
Jesus look at their fucking
wings. Walking up the steps
now nourishing ache & the sea
lolling its head against the sand.
I’m sure a man in the condos I can’t see
anymore is thinking of going over
the side of a balcony not of his sick dog
or his kid both having turned off
in his brain by a gust of hypnosis
the ocean to him a birthday candle
a crater I need to Google
how many tsunamis have hit
at night before I get inside
maybe the condo man’s son
nightmare-struck by a bogeyman
with flashlights for eyes
will scream himself awake
& the man on the ledge of himself
will forget however briefly & retreat
towards the hovel of fatherhood
where’s my obligation my neat
& penciled purpose what’s a wound
without a dog’s tongue there
to seal it I’m looking out at the sea
face blanched like a newborn
saying enough enough this is enough
before I turn off the porch light
& let each cicada fall away
towards wherever they go
at night.

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Justin Howerton is a first-year MFA candidate at Louisiana State University. Born and raised in Memphis, he received his BA from Lewis & Clark College in Oregon and promptly returned to the South. He writes about the pull of memory, the lies we wish were true and the magic of cars. His recent work can be found in The West Trade Review among other places.