Bradley David Waters

Bradley David Waters is a California-based writer of poetry, fiction, essays, and hybrids. His writing and image-based work appears in Denver Quarterly, Terrain.org, Exacting Clam and numerous other publications and anthologies. He is also a senior editor at jmww journal. Bradley earned his B.A. in English from Michigan State University and a master's in social work from the University of Michigan. He and his husband steward land for wildlife habitat, grow heirloom apples, and adopt unwanted poultry.

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Two Days in the Life of a Lead Balloon

Double ducks excite for a pan of morning trimmings;

shirk & balk at my every proximity. Later, a concert;

a legend stepping into a strategy of lasers. His untrussed posture

is half the showstopper (and I, half-aged, barely stand by the end).

Morning, your towel-mouth marbles my cotton-ears. Then,

I’m flapping a guest pass at your office tower. Imagined

a writing retreat porched with city scenery; instead,

high-performance carpeting, coffee pods, computer pods,

oatmeal packs, & ugly photo frames (truly unbearable brass).

Cinnamon-apple and bad design make me mad; plus,

you haven’t fed me yet. There are ducks that eat better and

I’m so weak I ought to be squabbed down my gullet with a worm.

I write next-to-zilch & watch an ant parade. Sports fans are maniacs;

go clean a river.

Everything outsized is a marvel of futurity and exhaust. People here put

polka-dot push pins in cities they rush to. I true-love this bluish brutalist overlook,

but I miss my plump wobbling ducks

& this proper collar pokes my neck

& these shoes attract electronic static

& I write:

Dear Filthy Farm Flannel,

Back home soon with a rubber sole and a HEPA filter.

Love,

Your Airsick Astronaut

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Standard Modern Inventory

It’s this city they’re doing to us. Summer of pin drops in kings’ maps.

Retribution distribution. Heat turning us sour turning us ragged.

You receive my rush hour update: killer on the loose, take the long way home.

Minutes away, morning chores butter poultry-shit work pants to my pallid legs.

Skin folds and wild hair I’m trying to adore. There’s watering to be done and the day’s

standard modern inventory: The audacity of desirability. The sale of despair.

It’s this material they’re doing to us. If I manage to make this uphill climb, I'll arrive into your

peacock-feathered sweatshirt—pixels, stars, and eye-worms as I adjust to your sweet climate.

You haven't shaved that pilled thing with a whirring contraption, and I haven't extracted pink

peppercorn buds from my rat's nest.

It's this weather they’re doing to us. Turning us into textures and turnstiles.

Wherever winds are trading, you let them in without credentials. Assaults of pollen grains,

sand gnats, and ruinous smoke. Particles of polyester and Volkswagens. Micro-moths turning

sweaters into air conditioners. This oxygen polisher takes it like a treat. Felts representatives.

Dispenses fleece like a lollipop kicked around a barber shop. A water filter for the sludge bowl,

and a furnace filter for the heat sink. Investing in the frustration industry—add it to my

standard modern inventory.

It’s this era they’re doing to us. They say you start looking like your pets, and my skin

looks like weather's favorite sandstone. Like this hillside holding us up. Propping us or

preventing us. Can you see me down here playing queer engineer and archaeologist?

Playing psychological Jenga and fairy wand pick-up-sticks? I like my toys but not my

playmates. Maybe I mistake their greeting cards for canaries. Maybe you open windows

to invite soothsayers into our air filter.

There...

You look so safe I can almost run to it.

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