Travis Brown

A BOX FACTORY

(w/ in)

my cousin

worked at

a box factory

folding time

b/w vodka

& the bad sadness

he turned

thirty or forty 

a life 

in prison

for what

someone’s son

murder

a murderer

they said

what is a kid

what number

is it

(w/ out)

I moved

to Portland

when I was 26

the river there

cut the city

in two sides

like an animal

flowing north

the Willamette

winds up w/

the Columbia

which heads

to Astoria

& from there

into the Pacific

I couldn’t believe it

this world

I said

I once built a box

a shipping crate

for a highly delicate

& intricately tooled

piece of machinery

it was headed

for Houston

or maybe Manassas

& eventually

into outer space

I was ashamed

my carpentry

was wicked

gross angles

no sense of scale

inside that box

the telescope

component was

a weird child

in a large coffin

after that

they never asked me

to build anything again