Featured Poet Anthony Sutton

Anthony Sutton resides on former Akokiksas, Atakapa, Karankawa, and Sana land (currently named Houston, TX) and has had poems appear or forthcoming in Southern Indiana Review, Indianapolis Review, Grist, Gulf Coast, The Journal, Passages North, Prairie Schooner, Puerto del Sol, Quarter After Eight, and elsewhere.

[Some days I am more ghost]

Some days I am more ghost
than word. You looked away
while we sat at the patio table
of your favorite gay bar
as I denigrated it. Bastion of men.
Cisgender apocalypse.
The perpetually hung
Christmas lights should have flickered
as I spoke, but instead there was the swift
response you gave
the bartender: I’ll take
both tabs.
Most days I am more anarchist
than sex object. We lie
under the glow as Pink Flamingos
by John Waters plays on your laptop.
I doze off during the execution, thinking
I was expected to be
more of a man
than a person.
Moments ago I kissed you
for what may be the final time.
Think of it as an archive
to prove that yes, I was here,
and though I was not
what I was when we met
I still was.

After Catullus #8

Wretched Anthony! You must stop your shit—
Attend to the hole in your shoe
that is now far larger than a quarter. Clean
your apartment. Take your car to the shop
and replace that tire. Stop dodging
the obvious: behind what your call
the chaos of my private self
is your father’s cancer. Under a spiraling out
of control is that the last person you slept with
you did so to distract yourself. You know it
because your heart is so heavy your bones
can barely stand. Do you think it’s truly
the size of the sun setting
behind those trees? You walked past the bridge
and down the way home, through
the growling of cars and the engorging wind,
holding that weight. Now you’re lying
in your dark bedroom, night thick
as ocean. What burdens will you start tomorrow?