2 poems

by KG Newman

puncture wounds

The garter snake lays on its back in the grass, 

gnawed on from the run-in with the dog, 

imagining the late train home, the one light bulb 

burnt out in the chandelier above the table, 

dented apples on the counter, our checking account 

running low again, slipping skins just to climb back 

in them, out of the last cab on earth, into the restaurant 

where the passersby can watch us silent fight 

from the street though the aperture, and inside 

even the corner silk fern is shedding, and your nails 

are chipping again, what if the steak is undercooked, 

if the presets misdirect, what if the road dead-ends

en route to therapy, our time turning brittle 

and expensive, like another couple at the crosswalk 

well-dressed and with well-crafted feet between them, 

for all to see, yet no one journals it, no one takes 

a Snapchat of that or a safety coffin anymore —

oh to be fearless, and to be that currently, 

with no need for fertilizer, or edging, with what 

we witnessed from the kitchen window that morning, 

the floor folding up to meet our shoulder blades, 

the dog on its way.

refusing extinction

My whole life is light-up dinosaurs

and turning clocks around. 

Picking which whisper to listen to

while walking down infinity halls,

burying fossils atop warped walls

for the son of my son’s son. In history 

he will learn about taxis and why we

should’ve stopped at the flip phone.

And maybe he too will be obsessed

with restoring beauty from the dead.

He might even break at a café terrace 

and feel no need to document it.

He will just sit there, sip his coffee,

watch two magpies fight over

a dropped slice of bread and then

bike home to his farm where

he collects eggs and carefully cleans

the coop of his own dinosaurs. 

KG Newman is a sportswriter for The Denver Post. His first four collections of poems are available on Amazon and he has been published in scores of literary journals worldwide. The Arizona State University alum is on Twitter @KyleNewmanDP and more info and writing can be found at kgnewman.com. He is the poetry editor of Hidden Peak Press and he lives in Hidden Village, Colorado, with his wife and three kids.