Stay with me

Just a few breaths prior     

words like candlejuice and copylion came from my original nib

Don’t think I’m making this up, all you editors, ‘cause

just like Jesus

my syntax may end up saving the world

With every word, I’m getting more famous

All of us have a future written on very important slips of paper

But I can no longer trick God into blaming me

I cannot hide from all the angel hair

Contrary to the slickeries sold to me since Sunday School’s first lesson, we’re furry to a one 

And quince may have been the forbidden fruit after all

Who can eat what has a core

Who can repeat our lineage relied on a whore

Still, I have my original gold foil star

Somewhere I do

You must believe me, as language never lies on its own

especially language like this that tells you that I am a real thinker, and  

generations will call me begotten as they

eye my tenacities, eyes like flies on the cotton of my candy

Remember who it is that is hairy, and where

I like anyone who likes my situations, and like

English ivy crawling from beneath the neighbor’s fence

(Does that explain a lot or what)

all those released from their captivities know that I, too, have been there

to that private place where my prize is affixed

Some rewards bear hiding

Without penetralia, some things can collapse  

Be careful who you call homeless

None of us had any idea the world could be this wide

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Joseph Byrd’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Punt Volat, Pedestal, South Florida Poetry Journal, DIAGRAM, Clackamas Literary Review, Many Nice Donkeys, and Novus Literary Arts. He’s a Pushcart Prize nominee, was long-listed for the Erbacce Prize, and was in the StoryBoard Chicago cohort with Kaveh Akbar. An Associate Artist in Poetry under Joy Harjo at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, he is on the Reading Board for The Plentitudes.