August Smith

3 Deads

I am dead on the surface of the moon
and I miss you like the sun. Space is less
romantic than I thought it would be.
Instead, it’s cold and all I hear is static
and I am dead face-down on the darker side of the moon
and you are still like the sun.

I am dead in a hotel room in Kentucky,
missing you like the west coast.
It’s high noon and the Oregon Trail is between us
with its sun-bleached oxen picked vulture clean,
and you are sunbathing, getting drunk, but I am still a body in
Kentucky, nobody has found me yet
and nobody will find me for twelve more hours
until a maid named maybe Rhonda goes to investigate
and she opens the door
and yup, sure enough, there I am, dead as hell, and still no closer
to the West Coast.

Ultimately I am dead in a Radioshack somewhere,
closed for the weekend, snowing outside,
and I miss you like libraries, which are never built
next to Radioshacks. I am dead on the blue carpet,
somewhere by the USB cords, and the light from the moon,
where I am still dead, reflects off the snow banks,
reflected in the laptop monitors.

August Smith is a twenty-one year old poet attending Western Michigan University. This is his first significant publication and he hopes you enjoy it. You can read more of his work here.