Brandon Courtney
Abstain
Sober six months, my lover keeps
a bottle of bourbon in the liquor
cabinet to remind him of what he
can no longer have, no longer
swallow. Between his
comforter――musky sheets――he
keeps the same: sleep, the
unsteady raft of my breathing, my
cock, gone soft as a wet sleeve in
his dormant hand. Last year,
drunk, he mistook my throat for
coal, constricted both fists――
knuckle s tight as execuioner’s
knots――until what he held was
more beautiful than diamond:
blood-drop pearls, bouquet of
blue veins, purpled necklace of
fingerprints. Once, in Abilene, he
lifted a longhorn’s skull from a
patch of poison ivy, held its
crown, its crescent horns to a
spindrift of stars, and showed me
how, like every animal, the moon
lies down sideways to die.
Public Lashing, Iraq, 2004
Two men with no less thirst, no
less need for lust kneel,
dishonored, the sand under their
knees ignorant to a body bent in
prayer――a coin of breath kissed
into the offering plate of his
chest, the Roman arch his spine
invents in orgasm――or
punishment. A dozen lashes,
each labial gash a hymnal of sin,
their shoulders memorizing the
shap of the cleric’s cane. How, a
year in Iraq, are your teeth―the
bruises’ sucked to the surface of
my neck―the only proof I have
of war. You will never hone the
knife of your tongue sharp
enough to kill. Tonight, on the
banks of the Tigris, you pour an
hourglass worth of sand from
your boots, spin your wedding
ring before pocketing it, as if the
dead―your wife―were looking
down into the black water of our
bodies, watching from the trellis
of heaven’s bridge. What are you
waiting for? The night is never
dark enough for our bodies to
hide; the night is never dark
enough to sleep.
Brandon Courtney was born and raised in Iowa, served four years in the United States Navy, and is a graduate of the MFA program at Hollins University. His poetry is forthcoming or appears in Best New Poets (’09), The Journal, Whiskey Island Review, Arcadia Magazine, 32 Poems, and The Los Angeles Review, among many others. Brandon’s work has received five Pushcart Prize nominations, and he recently won an Academy of American Poets Prize. His chapbook, “Improvised Devices,” will be published in Fall ’13 by Thrush Press.
Return to March 2013 Edition
Sober six months, my lover keeps
a bottle of bourbon in the liquor
cabinet to remind him of what he
can no longer have, no longer
swallow. Between his
comforter――musky sheets――he
keeps the same: sleep, the
unsteady raft of my breathing, my
cock, gone soft as a wet sleeve in
his dormant hand. Last year,
drunk, he mistook my throat for
coal, constricted both fists――
knuckle s tight as execuioner’s
knots――until what he held was
more beautiful than diamond:
blood-drop pearls, bouquet of
blue veins, purpled necklace of
fingerprints. Once, in Abilene, he
lifted a longhorn’s skull from a
patch of poison ivy, held its
crown, its crescent horns to a
spindrift of stars, and showed me
how, like every animal, the moon
lies down sideways to die.
Public Lashing, Iraq, 2004
Two men with no less thirst, no
less need for lust kneel,
dishonored, the sand under their
knees ignorant to a body bent in
prayer――a coin of breath kissed
into the offering plate of his
chest, the Roman arch his spine
invents in orgasm――or
punishment. A dozen lashes,
each labial gash a hymnal of sin,
their shoulders memorizing the
shap of the cleric’s cane. How, a
year in Iraq, are your teeth―the
bruises’ sucked to the surface of
my neck―the only proof I have
of war. You will never hone the
knife of your tongue sharp
enough to kill. Tonight, on the
banks of the Tigris, you pour an
hourglass worth of sand from
your boots, spin your wedding
ring before pocketing it, as if the
dead―your wife―were looking
down into the black water of our
bodies, watching from the trellis
of heaven’s bridge. What are you
waiting for? The night is never
dark enough for our bodies to
hide; the night is never dark
enough to sleep.
Brandon Courtney was born and raised in Iowa, served four years in the United States Navy, and is a graduate of the MFA program at Hollins University. His poetry is forthcoming or appears in Best New Poets (’09), The Journal, Whiskey Island Review, Arcadia Magazine, 32 Poems, and The Los Angeles Review, among many others. Brandon’s work has received five Pushcart Prize nominations, and he recently won an Academy of American Poets Prize. His chapbook, “Improvised Devices,” will be published in Fall ’13 by Thrush Press.
Return to March 2013 Edition