Dylan Macdonald - Poems

 Dylan Macdonald is a recent graduate of the University of San Diego. He has been published or is forthcoming work in the Columbia Journal Online, Rust + Moth – A Journal of Poetry and the Arts, Red Paint Hill Poetry Review.

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                         Mother Never Ate an Avocado
 
When I was young I would stare
at the sun
until
I went blind.
 
Stop That! Mother’s
work heels sunk
into the parched cement behind me.
 
The sun’s shade
lay green
on the back of my eyelids.
 
There was only light
until
there was shadow.
 
Then:
the sun-baked jade driveway,
the hopping sparrow
with its crimson chest
protruding,
the grey-blue-green Jeep,
the unconcerned golden terrier
leading his lost owner
out of our little cul-de-sac,
the maroon roofs checkered shingles,
the blurred avocado tree
its untouched fallen fruit piling,
and, finally,
mother’s six inch
emerald blue
work heels.
 
She folds her long red hair
into a bun.
The sun seeps
into the nape
of her pale neck.
 
 
                            Before I Ever Published a Poem
 
I had published a thousand poems,
had even recorded a few
to music.
I was choosing art over
money,
honey, while making plenty
of both.
 
I was bigger, then,
people said, and they could see
me from far away
through their telescopes,
glowing,
and sort of
floating, as well. 
 
Kendall loved me,
moved in with me,
could tolerate me
for days,
even weeks
at a time.
 
We had a dog named Triscuit
and a son named Rexi,
and I stayed home with them
on the week days
and on the weekends
I was Jesus Christ
and I
would push breath
into the wind
and warmth into
the blood
of vagrants.
 
Nothing
is quite so cold
as the uncoiling
of your own
mind.
 
 
 
     Most Nights, From Our Window, We Could Almost See the Moon
 
We could have planted
a White Ash
tree
 
atop the amber
hill.
We could have scooped,
 
in cupped
hands,
tadpoles
 
from the puddled
porch.
We could have left
 
the crumpled
stoop,
the stunted
 
tire swing,
the ramshackle
roof.
 
We could have run
beside the dogs
never looking up.
 
 
 
   I Have Only Seen an Uncooked Turkey Once
 
She stumbles out of the forest
clutching
a bottle of merlot.
 
Her baby sits on her cotton back
yelling,
Fly, Mother! Fly!
 
She leaps into me,
cracking
her knees and bruising,
 
with the stones in her mouth,
the thin skin
above my sternum.
 
The baby falls from the mother’s back,
landing
on my socked foot,
 
breaking its lean leg.
Can you not fly, Mother?
she cries.
 
The turkey puts down her wine
glaring
at me and picks her child up in her quivering beak.
 
 
 
Something Resembling a Poem about Love
 
I’m tired today.
Cold, too.
And I’ve forgotten how to write
a poem.
 
I love this girl.
She’s got legs
and hair, and a face;
she has eyes.
She has a thin stomach.
She is soft.
 
Sometimes,
when I hold her close
to me
at night
I take a little
of her heat
away.