Two Poems

by Seth Bockley

Anything You Touch Is Permanently Destroyed

on the surface of one of donald judd’s
calculably powerful aluminum cubes
there’s a pair of raccoon pawprints

the docent says these can never come off

& when she says ‘brushed metal’
you picture a kind man with a caustic sponge
sensually lunging across the surface

I could listen to you talk for hours

you trail off

so I do

into the sagebrush where the last
dogfought biplanes landed on strips
framed by phosphoric red flares
in the texas night

runway ending in a void 

steep drop down into carlsbad 

where they've turned out the lights

waiting in the dark cavern
to wow you when you’re ready for
the calcite cathedrals, lit up like christmas

promise me you’ll cut my hair 

from now on

prelim wishlist

I want a poem with a definitive turn leaning on line breaks like my dad used to lean on the horn hey where did you learn to drive kindergarten I want a poem that makes words into sex I want it to be you for once not pixels on a rectangle spattered with water as I’m typing this taking a shower if it’s not too much to ask I’d also like the poem to turn us into the aerobic algal bloom that 2.4 billion years ago spread over the globe & made all the oxygen we’ll ever get

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Seth Bockley thrives in the greater Midwest. His story “Repertorio" recently won a debut fiction prize for Boulevard magazine. He also makes plays and films, teaches at the University of Chicago, and is at work on a novel about Outsider Art. Follow him online at @sboke and sethbockley.com.