Devin Gmyrek

Easy Eraser

That feeling like your heart

has crashed through the floor

interpreter unaccounted for

stuttering air until someone comes

to the rescue, since someone almost

never does, the reason because

maybe you haven’t released a sound

like me writing this poem

and you can only watch Mortal Kombat

so many times before you guess the winner

either the guy upstairs grinning

or the uppercut one with spike through chest.

The stitching feels wrong,

that faceless doll and stumbling waterfall

somehow right, plus the cocoon

my caterpillar crawled into seems ready

to bust alight. Even the evergreen

cleaving silently the afternoon

pushes and pulls a bit

but I’ve got Tomaz and Tim

on my side so I shouldn’t be eaten

whole by this time tonight.

One’s an immortal and the other

possesses duende, which I understand

as an ominous yell from a well.

I don’t like using the word woke

even when I’m opening my eyes

and lit has me pissed off ‘cause

I’m still using vernacular from the nineties

like fresh and fly. I could change.

I might even try.

I might even try to not try to try.

I’ve been spinning around in circles

the last hour and I don’t know why.