Alexander Gast

Buckshot

i learned to be a man when you blew smoke

in her face and said your glass

was getting close to empty.

  when you

bit the head off my barbie—swallowed

it whole and shat platinum blond corn silk

for three days.

men, you taught me,

draw pistols to shoot the breeze. we arm-wrestle

thorn bushes. crunch shrapnel

like big league chew. fuck coors cans

and cum buckshot.

i watched you

wear beehives for sneakers to prove pain

was a fiction of the body. watched you

flip through pictures of your father

and shudder. ran my fingers over the edges

of the hole you punched in the

drywall 

              /

    of the hole you punched in the

cinderblock. saw you chop down a weeping

cherry because crying is weakness.

rip off

your right ear ‘cause you thought it was

the gay one. heard you cry in the shower

after the funeral 

                            /

                              after the wedding.