Surrender
The Fastest Man
Man Becomes Pig
The Idea of Family
Migration
Viking Funeral
Southern Highways
Seymour
Look to the Skies
Dance Shoes
Poison Can
Green Cloud
Each boxer knows the other boxer’s next move. Uppercut, one boxer, roundhouse, the other. They circle each other, no one striking. Left hook, thinks one, and right hook, the other. Jab, jab, jab, both hear in their heads, afraid to land a punch. The audience boos. But the crowd has never read each other’s minds. They don’t know combat depends on the unexpected. An opening never occurs, a window into another world of blood crunching bone. The boxers’ legs tire, build up lactic acid. The boxer who falls will be the one who can’t stand. Then mind reading won’t matter. The loser will surrender, and the referee will raise the hand of the victor. Sometimes a blow is unneeded. Wait the opponent out. Get ready for the body crashing into the canvas. Then dance in the ring, dance like the world comes anew.
At each race’s finish, I sweat and splash my friends. They wince, but I am the greatest runner in the universe, they must accept my perspiration. I practice running from bears and cheetahs, leap onto racing cars to help with agility. I perform eldritch, black magic rites to increase my speed, sacrifice fast beasts. Winning does not make me less alone. Friends remain distant, afraid I will throw them out, away from greatness. My coach only sees world records and hundred-dollar bills when she looks at me. Even my parents are too stunned to relate. When I race, though, I think of nothing. Not a moment in childhood building a deficient snowman or my job where I invited vegetarians to a barbecue contest. My thoughts dissipate in muscular contractions—my need to move my body past my opponents. When I snap the finish line, tearing it apart, I can reason again. No one gets close enough to hug me. My ex-wife is in Idaho, in a house built from our settlement. I don’t know she watches the end of the race, how she sometimes recalls my speed, how it delighted her to see records rewritten, numbers fall. My ex turns off the TV, sees a deer sweep across the window, gallop into the woods, unaware of distance or quickness, or what love might look like to an animal.
Hypnotized, I’m a duck joining its mate on the river. I quack, try not to appear fearful with all the other creatures around. Flying seems impossible, so I must rely on my webbed, clawed feet. Then the hypnotist says I’m a pig, and I oink in my mud pen, my only filth in this world. I imagine being loaded up the ramp to the slaughterhouse, that my heart bursts as I become bacon. Collapsing, I drop onto the club’s floor, and people call 911. The hypnotist is apologetic, shows a sign on the board he’s not responsible for people’s injuries. He chants I’m human now, I’m human now, but I don’t hear, too late in my dream of death. As they rush me into the ER, I whisper to a nurse not to hang me by a hook when they’re done. I know they will give away my other organs. The electric charge prompts a small oink. They try again, and I’m brought back from the house of death to a blue shadowed room, people wearing plastic on their hands, around their faces. But they have not saved a fellow human. No one, not even the hypnotist, can change my identity. In the ward I snuffle around, dosed heavily, becoming the pet pig for all the patients. There is no Open Sesame. No combination of words that can bring me back.
Dad is granite, arms capturing rain and snow before they hit the ground, able to wrap anything in his big hands. His lawnmower seems to move by itself, and his roof is clean of debris and disaster. Mom knows how to kiss goodnight to babies and friends and works a full-time job while plotting children’s birthdays like she is a professional. Her SUV drops kids to soccer practice like World War II bombs that will explode into the field and score more and more goals. The kids define precociousness, painting canvases that show in the museum, and earning notice from scientists for their school projects. They plot harmless practical jokes that make their parents shake their heads good-naturedly. When they get together at the local watering hole, their conversation has no holes in it; it’s tight as a submarine diving for the seventh time. They talk about Dutch machinery, presidential politics, Taylor Swift, canned vegetables, songs on the charts, and their school grades. Everyone sitting by them is jealous of the idea of family they represent. How their faces even glow like alien ray blasts. How their skin is translucent, so people can see their hearts leap underneath their cages, with no escape possible, none wanted.
The feather mansions learn how to fly. Wings wave in the air; the feather mansions listen to their migratory nature. Above flocks of castles and parades of lighthouses, mansions swoop north during the summer. Millionaires watch the mansions with binoculars, predict which posh neighborhood they’ll land in. The feather mansions tire, want to set down foundations. Instinct says the landing plots for each feather mansion are several miles away. But when one feather mansion’s windows face a horse farm, with new tennis and basketball courts, the feather mansion remembers its birth. Shingles nailed delicately; roof carefully measured. Doors and windows, their eyes and ears. Yes, it lands, and the inhabitants love it, adorn its insides with paintings and entertainment centers. Only the seasons will unlatch this feather mansion. Residents will wave goodbye as it migrates, eager for the feather mansion to return, shelter them from rain and the sun, through snow, against hail.
Not all the Vikings are dead. Some are ashamed. Some wanted to die in an attack. Some pretend to be dead. Some Vikings were just scratched; a sword didn’t penetrate their heart or cut off their head. But rising up the same hill, confronting the same fusillade of arrow, they realized victory was impossible. Listen. Hear their muffled pain from the boats–boats taken by the blaze. Their honor saved by the flames. Their sons will grow up mighty and unencumbered by guilt or cowardice. They will pick the boat where their fires will be set when they’ve fallen in battle, as if they’re selecting a bride. The sons are truly married to the boats, the wish for death. Now the skiffs flow deeper into the river, where they will collide and continue to burn. Mingling as if this was the greatest love.
are so hot some cars’ wheels melt on the asphalt before people can drive them. Truckers from the 1970s use CBs to warn other vehicles of smokies hidden behind billboards. Some highways climb so high the moon is close enough to brush with fingers. Others sink into valleys, where the Hatfields and McCoys shoot at one another, the feud still fueled by hate. In Mississippi churches wave cars toward white spires, hijack recruits for the lord, while abandoned drive-in movie theaters creep monsters into cars, frighten them out of their jujubes. In Alabama tornadoes say hello to those skirting rain on highways, before crashing into a city. A cloverleaf in Georgia goes nowhere, forces vehicles to circle until they must cross dirt to escape. In Tennessee a highway is paved with diamonds. Signs warn motorists not to get out, but always a few disobey. They’re shot like deer, left to bleed into pure crystals; a truck carries the bodies to unmarked graves. There’s an end to southern highways, but no one ever sees it. Towns claim travelers, ensconce them in hotels. The end is the end, the opposite of “Let there be light.” The oceans, the skies, the land claim everything. “Let there be night.”
Man-Ghost only part-time haunted the house. Not that good at rattling chains or howling like the wind, he still put forth his best effort. Some residents felt uncomfortable, asked if they heard noises, but in the end, they didn’t run out screaming. The rest of the time he worked at an envelope factory. Pressed buttons that slathered glue on openings, tested their quality with a wet sponge. He was in love with a woman on the floor. She was half-banshee, and it seemed like a good combination. Except every time he passed her corner, she released a blood curdling screech, and he had to back away. One day he hoped to catch her outside of the factory, so they could share their supernatural origins. At home he tried to go to bed but was instead summoned to float over tired residents and pass through walls, a trick they’d seen before. Fatigued, the Man-Ghost regretted not asking the Banshee-Woman to haunt with him. She lived in a swamp with the will-o-wisp nearby; the two of them always scared their victims. His house residents didn’t bother with an exorcist or holy water. They called him Seymour, as if he was cute and cuddly. The powers that be wouldn’t let him stop haunting. Bound to the property as a ghost, he would moan again, sounding like muted thunder, like it might be time for rain.
We grow with the clouds into the animal shapes they represent. One of us becomes a tiger, floats over prey before pouncing on it. Another person is a lamb, innocent, seeking someone to shear it from the sky. We gather in zoos of cumulus, where we talk of rain and hail. On the Earth, meteorologists are aware of the clouds’ threats. They warn the authorities, FBI to Space Force, but none of them listen. The authorities watch ‘War Games” screens, hoping AI won’t launch all the missiles at once. On TV broadcasts, meteorologists exclaim to the camera about the unpredictability of the skies, how even anvils and lead pipes might fall on our skulls. The meteorologists are dragged away; traffic comes next, then a story about a boy’s lemonade stand making hundreds of dollars. A gentle shower starts, and it temporarily comforts everyone. No one knows what’s next, but they hold their breaths, fearing rocks will drop, hoping the sun will carry all the darkness.
At the bar I ordered Amaretto Sours and proceeded to get smashed. My feet and legs drew me away from my chair, and I swerved to the dance floor. I was magnificent. I slid through slower songs and gyrated during faster ones. I could feel the pleasure everyone was feeling. It became so hot, only I was on the platform. Soon, the crowd picked me up from the floor, so thrilled at my performance they marched me through the club, like the winner of a football game. That's all I remember before I regained consciousness in the alley. Someone had stolen my dance shoes. Vomit flecked my mouth. Flashbacks showed I wasn't dropped easily. The crowd tossed me fiercely from their shoulders. Then they returned to the dance floor, clapping; their bodies had turned weightless like clouds.
The grass and weeds have fallen in love. They’ve bound themselves together, so you can’t tell which leaf is which. You carry poison with you; you’ve always carried poison with you. But spraying them would destroy what you cherish, the lawn reaching the street, emerald in the bastion of the moon. Weeds are too afraid to let go, realizing they were born to be deracinated, find no hope in humans who wanted them dead. The grass is open to any chemical that will make it die with the only life it lives for. You stand before the heap of vegetation, can in your hand, nozzle ready to shoot. But you let them live, put the can in the basement so it can slowly leak into concrete. You are disappointed you couldn’t kill something just to kill it, with an excuse for your destruction. Everything is better for your turning away. Weeds reveal colors you didn’t know existed. The grass thrives on your neglect. You stop carrying poison. Someone you love notices, and you both become like weeds and grass. Whatever harms her harms you.
Spirit knew the body was unwilling. Its arms flopped at its sides like unworkable wings. The face couldn’t smile, its lips a thin red line. The feet would not dance to music or even tap its toes. Spirit had a difficult job. To make the body twirl with others in a circle, raise its hands to what is holy. Entering was like coming through corn mush, cold and uninviting. The heart was already full of darkness, so spirit had to fit inside the brain by climbing the nervous system. At first spirit had no response. The body’s limbs continued to play dead like a well-trained dog. Then, spirit bopped each part of the brain. The body responded. Movement was uneven, one hand, the torso, left foot. These parts sang as best they could to the church of motion, but these worshipers were not enough. Soon, spirit steered the body in front of the chapel, so it spoke in tongues. The minister was overjoyed, yelled the body was inhabited by the lord. But that heart, that miserable heart. It yanked the reins back from the spirit. A green cloud filled the body. It sat, a sad clown, too unhappy even for tears. No one in the congregation could make the body move. Spirit bailed. It knew where it didn’t have power. A dark heart had strength even it couldn’t summon.
Donald Illich‘s work appears in such journals as Iowa Review, LIT, Nimrod, Passages North, The Southern Review, Rattle, Fourteen Hills, The Louisville Review, Cimarron Review, Map Literary, Spork, Cream City Review, and Sixth Finch. His work has been anthologized in A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry and City of the Big Shoulders: An Anthology of Chicago Poetry. His full-length manuscript, Chance Bodies, was published in 2018 by The Word Works. A full-length poetry collection, Rescue is Elsewhere, was released in 2023 by Red Ogre Review via a Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association grant. A new book, Love Poems on Bar Napkins, was released by Red Ogre Review in 2024. He lives in Maryland.
