Nino McQuown 

Dreamt I dropped my cup and broke it. Didn’t know what to do with so much milk and honey.
Dreamt she said find me again when you’ve got more than mild to give. Everyone I love loves to
be cared for specifically by me and misses me while I am sleeping. My baby wandering the
house saying my name. Like, make the moon rise (since the moon is not always there). I fall
asleep writing and dream I have no paper and my shirt’s too dark to take the ink.

When I was a child my father gave me the sleeve of his black hoodie to blow my nose in.

His disgust and willing offering, the glistening trail of snail slime snot, the way it stuck together
just above his wrist is how I think of love now. My own baby holds their yellow watering

can to my lips over and over for days I drink the light inside. They chew their cake, then put it in
my mouth, then take it out and eat it. It feels obvious to drink.

My favorite way of waking up is alone and slow so I can touch myself and then say to myself
very sternly that reading a library book when your hands smell like cum isn’t hot it’s
inconsiderate. Is it ok and not so embarrassing as this is to talk about my dead father loving
me? My irridescence glittering on his arm was almost my first poem, but not. That one rhymed
lies and eyes and was about a love I’d never known. Not her best work. I mean her, I mean
trying to steer my gender is like trying to steer an arcade car. I get excited, flip until on fire. I spill

my beer. I break the glass again. Somebody has to come and clean it up with a broom and a
rag and since this is Baltimore I know them. I’d say sorry but this metaphor maps perfectly. It’s
her best work. Testosterone has made me stupid and also untrustworthy. All over I sprout semi-
invisible, extensive fuzz an eighth of an inch in length around my skin so I’m capable, even
without hands, very close, of touching anyone without consent. I didn’t mean to turn

into a stupid boy. A witch did this for watercress or something. I’d like to say playing dumb with
stupid boys will only make us dumber but I don’t really think this is your fault. T makes me
strong and makes me complain a lot. I don’t know what you see when you look up at me but I
just want all my holes filled by sluts who love me and also to be a good dad and you know, to
have many accomplishments. I’m afraid when I’m being sincere like this. I mean, I wanted to
want. I did. But I find that the stupider I get, the more scared. 

At the end it all took on that gentle glow

that things get when you’re leaving. Even

shitty things. Even London, Ontario, once

we had an exit set it was June and everything

was honey-colored. Black raspberries all

along the bike paths, little worms rising out

of them catching the honey-colored light.

We got invited to the hot tub: a honey trap.

The sunset something sweet to lose. On TV

in America a woman forgives her father for

his frivolous enjoyments at the end before he

dies. It’s like real life, in which I miss my father

who died off-screen but the scene was the same:

several siblings and an intubation machine a

doctor full of feelings spilling upward from

his body over his unprotected hands. Someone

loved. He went too fast to glow. That’s better. I

rest my case, or, no. It’s just that I have to rest

something. Tonight my whole life is shining. Did

it always look this good? Were we always almost

happy if not for the evil in the world? I can see

it clearly now. Hooked my thumb into the corner of

a woman’s lip and she opened her mouth to take

all of my fingers on her tongue. We were hungry

and we had enough to eat. You put the music on

your phone in the kitchen, did your kangaroo

rat dance with me. I wrote my poems on the train.

I took a while to heal just a few old wounds. I think

I might have been happy? Happy here. The light

comes with an awful buzzing like the mall.

I missed America is why I left London. Embarrassing.

Home, I stood under twenty-foot-high walls of kitchen

implements for sale, all for sale, in a mall store,

dead with light, and felt my credit card nosing

my pocket like a television dog. I met a shepherd.

Sang the end of summer rituals with her up in

the sun. I loved my life enough to grieve it

constantly. I made a list of what I’d miss

while it was bright enough to see.