9.7 / July 2014

Tiresias Abandons His Pretense

No one ever gets the upper hand, and my palms
swapped flesh for granite and the hard bark

of a tree that’s so old it hurts to carve your
name in the leaves. I lie—the upper hand

has always been mine, now I’m trying to stop
slapping the pavement till a volcano shoulders

through a pothole. Because I can bear no sacrifice, I’ll
continue talking. Never mistake me for a mule carrying

twice its weight in bleached skulls. I’m all donkey,
with only my own skeleton rattling off excuses inside

of me, I donkey down the canyon side, I donkey
down 42nd street towards a lowering sun all full

of beeswax and antivenin waiting for me to reach into my
pocket, like an acorn waits to grow up and topple something.


Nick Narbutas is a poet from the San Francisco Bay Area, currently living in New York City. He is an MFA candidate in poetry at Columbia University, and his poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Court Green, The Journal, Gulf Coast, and The Pinch.
9.7 / July 2014

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