Adam Deutsch

Packing Heat
 
Lockheed rings. That vehicle inspector job
I’m looking good for. She has questions
over a long distance between us.
 
I am comfortable with rotating shifts.
I wrestle with no genuine objection
to wearing a gun. I have no arrests,
and can submit to random testings.
 
She needs to know these things, also
details surrounding my motivation,
asks what I want from a company
to feel I can give all I’ve got,
to draw when necessary in the clutch:
 
Shelter and compassion and eats. Our fill.
I haven’t worked in almost one
whole year, and can bear a uniform’s weight.
 
As a show of sturdy thew, I’m out of the bed.
Keys, dollars and identification badges
could be off the stand, for voids in dust.
 
Which caliber rounds could find their way
into the mix of change and cough drop wrappers?
 
I am not the man for this level of clearance.
 
I wear no shoes on the porch,
stand for an hour, absorptive, unarmed.
 
 
 
 
Tidal Waves
 
In the one
where we drive
and the sea
climbs over
the cliff
and takes us in
beyond guard rails,
I don’t let go
of you.
We surface in
a wicker basket.
You dream
you wake
and tell me
all about it.
You wake
to my roll
too fast, a leg’s
slam into the blinds.
My side of this
full bed
is wall and window.
Yours is wide
open room.
 



Adam Deutsch lives in San Diego, and has work that’s appeared or is forthcoming in Iron Horse Review, Forklift, OH, H_NGM_N, diode, No Tell Motel, Juked, and others. He is the publisher at Cooper Dillon Books.




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