2 Poems

By Brian Jerrold Koester. Published on March 4, 2023.

Chasing Rabbits

One year in seven

the apricots

embody the sun

and the water.

When I called you

Shawnie precious

and you said you

would give anything

even your life

to hear me say it

once     unironically

I never counted

the times your hairy

tummy glistened

with my saliva.

I never counted

the women we each

celebrated.

When you and the guys pinned me

to your floor and made me

unable to dissemble —

What was the question again?

Remember

what the Easterdog said:

one game makes you larger     and

one game makes you small.

If you had given me

a sincere word

I would have been yours.

The Antischeherazade Speaks

All my stories end in freezing thunder

The puritan pedophile who owned the ice cream shop

The air spirit who carried my unborn child

The golden warrior who chose me over god

My own mother who lived to wither everyone she touched

There is only one story that can save me

It has no beginning

Brian Jerrold Koester is a Pushcart Prize nominee and a Best of the Net Anthology nominee. His poetry collection is titled What Keeps Me Awake (Silver Bow Publishing) and his chapbook is called Bossa Nova (River Glass Books). His work has appeared most recently in Poetry Pacific, Rind, Live Nude Poems, Triggerfish Critical Review, and One. Koester is an aficionado of single malt whisky and a proud Cub Scout dropout.