a poem by derrick austin

Jezebel


You sniffed me out like a prophet
after a problem and a city filled with people
who never listen. I nursed a longneck
by the cooler, catfish on ice jeweled
with flies. You were slick and coffin-sharp.
Haven’t we had this date from the start?
You promised to make it snow in May,
which reminds me—too late—of Borges
on love and fallible gods. I believed
the world crystallized for you.
Snow collected on the crown of my head.
No. You flicked cigarette ashes on me.
Touch me, touch me. O hounds of memory!
All night gnawing and lapping my palms.

"Jezebel" first appeared in Assaracus.

Derrick Austin is a Cave Canem fellow and earned his MFA from the University of Michigan. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Best American Poetry 2015, Image: A Journal of Arts and Religion, New England Review, Callaloo, Crab Orchard Review, The Paris-American, Memorious, and other journals and anthologies. He is the Social Media Coordinator for The Offing.

a poem by derrick austin

Devotions


All night you pace between our bed and another
room in the house, fetching glasses of water
when you mean shots of gin. The candle
doesn’t catch your naked body—a leg, the cut
of stubble—only the shadow of its leaving,
the whole of you uncontainable like the moon,
its kissable face and its darker chambers.

Mary offers her mangled son, a matchmaker,
from the dollar-store votive by the bed.
(Other nights John the Baptist rolls his eyes at me.)
You’re the one who stayed, or
at least never left. You stay because of hard rain,
or dead magnolia on the drive; or is it custom
for the wounded to care for the wounded?

Where are you? I need a solitary room
with you in it. Wall me in. Lie down on me.

"Devotions" originally appeared in Tidal Basin Review.

Derrick Austin is an MFA candidate at the University of Michigan. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Unsplendid, Tampa Review Online, Knockout, Crab Orchard Review, and other journals.