kim d. hunter
time grew
back when time grew on trees and the fruit of knowledge was a snake’s mouth away, i tried to turn on the television in the middle of day, night when no one was watching, so the images would not repeat my mistakes as i changed the channel in wreckless hope
which is strange for a place where everything is for sale, especially our time, still, i went down to the sea in search of moments without price tags, waves roared into the skull cave carved out by the surrogate owners of everything
can you help me get this hook outta my mouth, a dolphin in a sharkskin suit asked me
i have a job interview, prison audition, murder trial, circus shooting, she said, and who knows what will happen if i’m late, if i’m on time, if i show up
i was about to forge excuses required by the hook manufacturer to heal the wound when her family swam up to us
you’re not a domestic, they admonished with their permanent smiles, only humans believe in destiny and sales receipts as proof that something happened, we love you for your instincts, let’s cauterize the wound without fire or documents, there are oceans of sun and storm ahead
swimming away from me, they shouted, count the body you’re in, as i searched in vain for my likeness
what i hate about love
it shows up more on screen than in flesh, dollar store laxatives in theatrical popcorn give the illusion of emptiness that can only be filled with multiverse computer demons swallowing their own tails in stereo on screens that claim to be your mother, father, the lost dog you never had
capsule movie reviews tattooed on digital retinas insist it was a communal experience alone in darkness of the public private home entertainment catacomb, but omit the sequels and prequels of temporary lobotomy
if only you had taken the advice of your bartender who used to be a psychiatrist before she was a bookie who earned enough to pay the losers and after they’d had a few drinks, she’d school them in statistics until they swore off betting and organized their neighbors into cadres out in the open away from the glare of doom scroll and virtual virality
her purple-haired students, her multi-colored loved ones, her multi-gendered comrades swarm the headquarters, cross the moat, occupy the temple of moneylenders where you just got a job training people to be trained, but maybe, in the spit and sweat of the crowd that knows it is a hydra, an organism, there is a chance for something more glorious and ignobly human than anyone has ever feared
the come and go lounge
two skeletons complete with nervous nerves and organic organs emerge from outside the come and go lounge near the crossroads, puzzled and happy to speak through their bones before they lay down in the hope of flesh yet to be and those that led them to this place, named and renamed until painted layers peel with a kind of music in the marrow, soundtrack to the question
what ever happened on the cave wall, under the glow of the fireworks turned rocket, on the corpse strewn field of weapons as the model for hell, in towers of towers for towers’ sake, a worrisome parade of occurrences and stuff as we look for ourselves in other skeletons across the way
look for that common currency, love with no value but love, with organs failed or missing, limbs and function erased in time on the corner of the mountain and the vacant lot, intersection of alley and swollen river, where forest overgrows the brand-new parking structure, we stop for lunch to call and respond
do you come here often
only to empty my soul and make way for the future
Based in Detroit, where he works for social justice groups in Michigan, kim d. hunter is a poet and prose writer. He is the author of a collection of short stories, The Official Report on Human Activity (Wayne State University, 2018), and two books of poetry: edge of the time zone (White Print Inc., 2009) and borne on slow knives (Past Tents, 2001). He co-directed the Woodward Line Poetry Series for thirteen years and holds a 2012 Kresge Literary Arts Fellowship.