by Robert Beveridge

Errata

p. 88: “wood” should be “word”.

p. 127: the existential basis

of “fuck you” is covered

in Heidegger’s Being and Time,

pp. 129-151.

p. 263: When I was nine years old,

I fell out of a tree.The flight

was short, interminable,

the crack of a scapula

on hard-packed soil,

the breath, how it fled

the lungs like scared officers

on the Lusitania.

p. 274: “mire” should be “morass”.

p. 391: Charles Bukowski never,

in fact, inhabited Palos Verdes;

nor did the subject sleep

with Leni Riefenstahl,

as he often claimed

after too much cheap porter.

p. 505: “Conclusion” is not, of course.

p. 510: “fin” should be “fen”.

---

Fuck Me, Kitten

For William S. Burroughs

this was not

a bullet to the forehead

in imitation of William Tell;

this was not

the overloaded rush

of Moroccan junk and cheap red wine;

this was not

the hack, burnt lungs

of exposure in the rain on tracks.

No, this was

simple, brutal:

the stopped heart, the slumber.

---

Robert Beveridge is possessed of a strange, uncontrollable magic: when he moves to a major city, that city’s baseball team wins its championship series soon after (’69 Orioles, ’79 Pirates, ’93 Phillies, ’95 Indians). He currently still lives outside Cleveland and plans to only live in towns with populations of 10,000 or less for the rest of his life. Recent work has appeared in Third Wednesday, Guide to Kulchur, and The Starving Artist, and is forthcoming in Poetry Breakfast and Sonic Boom.