published in

Parker Tettleton ~ Five By

All Fires

The thrilling sound is qui­et most of the time. The sec­ond sen­tence is work­ing remote­ly. We were togeth­er, in the bath­room, last. You said some­thing. I stepped out of the show­er. I am a man with a soon-to-be ex-wife.

The First Time Buying Beer After You Died

We are sit­ting on a floor, then we aren’t. We are car­ry­ing each oth­er in silence, in the dark, in front of mir­rors, until we get out of bed. We are qui­et­ly in our own lives. We are nev­er there for each oth­er again. We were unable to speak to each oth­er the last time, at the gro­cery store, except through messenger.

Something For The Golf Bag

It’s Sunday: I don’t work, wake up before eight, take my umbrel­la & three favorite bags down the street, past the office, into & through the mall, to & through my near­est gro­cery store, I return home, take the pic­ture, text it to my moth­er, post it on Yelp, put my gym clothes on, go to the gym, spend twen­ty-three min­utes alone on an ellip­ti­cal watch­ing it rain in silence, come home, show­er, watch bas­ket­ball, talk to my moth­er, watch Mad Men, mes­sage Teresa, write.

Marlon Rice

I don’t dream about geese, I see them on Lucky Hank. The sec­ond sen­tence moved every­thing of yours out with­in two days. Portland is per­fect when it’s above six­ty degrees & below my expec­ta­tions for sex. If I want­ed to fire some­one, I’d fire myself.

Fake Broccoli

Saturday is Saturday except I’m not sure what Saturday is. The kiss is the morn­ing, the qui­et before & after I put my head­phones on for time & a half. I’m walk­ing, it’s sun­ny, I’m in my neigh­bor­hood. I’ve lived here most of the last decade. You live down the street now. It’s the week­end, but it isn’t.

~

Parker Tettleton is a veg­an Leo liv­ing in Portland, Oregon. He is the author of Classic Plastic (forth­com­ing, Ravenna Press), OR (Ravenna Press, 2022), This Is A City (Ravenna Press, 2020), Please Quiet (Ravenna Press, 2018), Ours Mine Yours (Pitymilk Press, 2014), Greens (Thunderclap Press, 2012), & Same Opposite (Thunderclap Press, 2010). More work & infor­ma­tion is here: https://parker-augustlight.blogspot.com.