By Dion O’Reilly
Featured Art by Levi McLain
Canadian smoke vape-skunk
on public paths
a smokeless Rivian
driven by a man who didn’t want me
all the men and women who didn’t want me
and the one who does our favorite bed our over-washed sheets
I let them in
I let in the living I let in the dead
the expanding ranks
of the mad with tin cups and tuneless guitars
the falsely proud
with their flags and concealed carry
my assassin mother plumbers pilots project managers
ex-presidents thieves
I let in the fleshy I let in the wasted
yes I let in the one who loves me and the velvet night
lifts my bed takes me
like a clipper ship
takes fine-cut tea
the oaks and eucalyptus bow to me like a queen
they regain their kingdoms and the sins
of the eucalyptus are forgotten
monarchs guild their branches like magnificent cloth
the beetle-eaten oaks burst into green
the white clay broken in bogs and spray cans in landfills
lift like Jehovah’s Witnesses
even my assassin mother deathless god dies
and gives me reign
the necrophiliacs abandon their passions
the flag bearers and gunslingers are stunned
by the lies of Revelation
A.I. ceases its hallucinations
project managers leave their applications
totalitarians learn to follow
their breath
in a warm sea fish tremble leaderless
they move toward another world
Dion O’Reilly is the author of three poetry collections: Sadness of the Apex Predator (University of Wisconsin’s Cornerstone Press 2024), Ghost Dogs (Terrapin Books 2020), and Limerence, a finalist for the John Pierce Chapbook Competition, forthcoming from Floating Bridge Press. Her work appears in The Sun, Rattle, Cincinnati Review, The Slowdown, Narrative, and elsewhere. She is a podcaster at The Hive Poetry Collective, leads poetry workshops, and is a reader for Catamaran Literary Quarterly. She splits her time between a ranch in the Santa Cruz Mountains and a residence in Bellingham, Washington.
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