The Infield Rule by Kenneth Jakubas| Really System: Issue Ten

The Infield Rule

Kenneth Jakubas

A pacing that of trees burning,
Another ship sinking, a closer makes
His way from the door in the wall, rubber
In his shoulder, a pretense of jewel
Around his definition of hair—
To The Rubber bleached with dirty chalk!
The word is just doing the numbers.
Tears travel miles to be tears.
The ship decides to sunbathe.
Belly up, it covers and soaks
What is left of the sun—
A coffin. My pleasure is always
Slow and timed, a mathematics of fire.
Give them it, they said.
The question stays, how much emphasis.
Whether the loops can be defined,
Isolated as DNA, is the real sensation.
I can dip myself too like a cone
Into your voice, watch where the burnt go
Between their doorways, hear the wood
Swinging away to the sound of one
Mass astonished sound, collective as applause
For the subterfuge rose up. My mouth a close
Shotgun to my heart, a secret opens red
And slow as dawn across long grass.

Kenneth Jakubas is an MFA candidate at Western Michigan University, where he is currently serving as Non-Fiction Editor for Third Coast Magazine. His work is forthcoming or has appeared in Sundog Lit, Niche, Literary Orphans, Flyover Country Review, HTML Giant, Day One, and Noctua Review, among others. He lives in Kalamazoo, MI with his son and orange cat, Clementine.

ISSUE TEN: Satyrs Yell "Me!" | next poem →