Capri Sun pouch at college parties
Ocean Spray at bars
for every birthday declining drinks
an impulse cocked and ready
in the throat
I’m dried blood after cracking a new
wine stem, dull-rust linger
after Swiffer wipes and shadows
stagger out
family history prompts dry
pause at the kickback try speaking
spirits into fuel, sharing visions
of slurred wreckage
I’m fourth shot dropped on weeknights
and a problem calling quits, denial
of drowning but still urging that
it’s better not to start
one brunch friends
all get rosemary greyhounds
recall front planters
back home back then
hoping to perfume
onto air escape inside
I’m chipped pipe tucked by Uncle
into pockets, tongued to keep on
burning, keep on beaming
dime-bright smiles
inside nestfuls of failed rosary,
chipped crosses off another
uncle’s drawer here Christ
dies next to a bad license
I’m bottle factory that swallowed up
Great-Grandpa’s arm, him
bringing work home by the case,
the sharded skin Gram patched in quiet
the basement filled with photos
crammed in waterlogged and cracking
frames names floating through
the dark keep swimming
I’m looking in the mirror
only long enough to
throw a stone
CD Eskilson is a trans poet, editor, and translator from Los Angeles. Their work appears in The Offing, Pleiades, and Cream City Review, and they are a 2022 Best of the Net finalist. CD is assistant poetry editor at Split Lip Magazine. They are an MFA candidate at the University of Arkansas.
