Gianni Gaudino: You Are Practically Dead
The people who live above me flick their cigarettes onto my drying clothes
I always spill the milk,
wipe it, drops hem the tile floor
No matter, this house is stupid
We’ve had ants building homes
under the sink Armies of ants
plotting to conquest
Ants in my bed Ants in the bathtub
Ants in my watermelon
In the morning I wake to ants marching
God I am such a millennial
I go to work as an adjunct
smoke a cigarette in traffic
then to the restaurant
and when I get there
my boss yells, fuck you!
I’m still learning how to use emojis
I only use the happy and sad faces
which are the only two emotions
I’m aware of except these ants
If I were brave I’d text my landlord
the ant emoji, four angry faces,
and a bomb He probably wouldn’t
respond, come with his exterminator mask
and poison gun My drains are clogged
They’ve been since day one
and my window’s missing
a slab of wood so the cold comes in
God I am such a millennial
One day I’ll grow muscles
One day I’ll wear a mask
One day I’ll call you out God
I hate you landlord Please, snow,
I love you just stay outside
Facing the Redwood
In the tutoring center
you ask fellow tutors to stop
stereotyping, stop talking
about incest and dildos
and they fight you.
You’re a tutor too.
But you are a nobody.
You are weak.
When people look at you,
they see a flimsy branch.
Kids pick you up and swing you
across the lawn.
Adults use you to taunt
the neighbor’s cat.
You are practically dead.
Your coworkers laugh at you,
and you say “okay,” you say
“People are trying to learn.
This is a forest of learning
and someone’s canoe has tipped
in the creek, bunnies hop,
convoluting syntax, soup cans
and wrappers bramble the ground
and some kids are lighting a mattress
on fire.” You want to say,
“I am chock full of what you need.”
Some folks like to wash others mouths
with soap. A heart is just a metaphor
for a brain, and cats are not
cowards, obviously. They wouldn’t
climb to the tops of Redwoods.
Maybe you are a cat, too, and people
like to poke your fangs.
People like to pull your whiskers
when you’re mad and they shouldn’t
but you’re a cute cat–your pipsqueak
roar, your perpetual bean paws.
You should mew and Cat Kong
that Redwood. The collar around
your neck is just a collar.
Gianni Gaudino’s poems appear in Muzzle Magazine, Public Pool, Whirlwind Magazine, and among others. He’s a 7th and 8th grade creative writing teacher for the School District of Philadelphia and lives in South Philly.
