Superstition
A man says, I am handing you the knife.
I reply, I am receiving the knife.
My grandparents and mother drive
to the ER for fear. They don’t make it
back. On I-24, a 21-vehicle-crash comes—
with no injuries. Then two people
wreck and the interstate too
croaks. With whom I grieve very much
alive, I play chess with a computer, a stale,
check, or fool’s mate, a bird’s opening.
A pawn, one knight threatens me, loss
or draw, and I don’t develop my pieces.
I’m made defensive. The bishops attack me.
Sometimes, the knife’s placed on a table,
and I wait four minutes before I grab it.
Urge
You don’t understand:
I was praying to die,
mud in the shower,
the shh happening
like an earthworm,
potash in the manure,
its pesticide
in the urine, tears.
I would rev a saw
to my bedrock,
the nitrogen running.
I would pray, dry out,
and see a cube in the mirror
of dirt with a towel around it,
mold on the head, the pit.
Exodus could’ve had me.
Prince Bush is a poet with poems in Black Warrior Review, PANK, Poet Lore, and more.
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