9.5 / May 2014

Two Poems

Memories of Cottage

Little things like walking to the coffee table
took hours if prep-time was counted.
Trophies were on the floor everywhere.
My toes were bandaged. My socks had holes.
Those summers, I stepped on stuff. I stepped on gold
and rocks. I saw an island out my window
strewn with brush and little lights. I thought I’d go.
I thought I’d befriend things there like lightning bugs,
with luminescent powder in their butts
and face-sized eyes to gleam hints across water.
I wanted to marry one. I wanted little me and lit-up her to kiss
with a priest down the aisle and dance. All that.
I built my August legacy as Sand Prince, the guy
who slept when it was warm and was a damn firefly’s groom
while his family sat here for the season.


The Guy

This wizard has his hands on my sister.
His touch makes all acorns fall from a tree.
He creates light in his palm, and forces it upward
in a sickening flair. I don’t know him.
I see him rolling a comet in his scaly fingers.
My sister and the wizard are rowing
a boat, and a picnic materializes. A glazed pig
with an apple in its mouth lays there on the cloth.
If god sinks their boat, I’ll call the navy for my sis’,
but The wizard needs to cool it. Let him ride a bubble
to the bottom of the sea. Let him cry inside.
Let his magic tears fog the bubble
and make it look, from far away, like an orb,
a sucky man-sized pearl amongst the silt
of the Mariana Trench.


Cody Ernst's work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Cream City Review, CutBank, and WordRiot. He is pursuing his MFA at The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University.
9.5 / May 2014

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