Notes to Modern Census

 

i have the low hungry moan of a water buffalo. i glow
            with the soft light of an autumn afternoon.
i am every side effect

                        that the doctors foretold.
                                    i wake to the sound of television
                                                                         and bleach my teeth
                        in the fluorescent sheen of a laptop screen.
 
i am bought. i am updated. i increase
                                    in value for less of a price.
my body is chiseled to user preference.
i am designed to feign satisfaction.
                                                 my asshole is puckered and tight
                                                                            as a lily-white fist.
            i am submissive. i bald in all the perfect places.
                        i perform masculinity
            in a theater near you.
i read the modern novel. i am a modernist.
                                    i say the future starts with me.
i am sophisticated. i am forthcoming.
            i am luxury served with gold cutlery.
                        i have a taste for the finer things.
 
                                                                                                  i have all my chips
                                                 on the table and a knife in my pocket.
                        i dinner. i protest. in court-
ly fashion i am punctual as the proverbial moon.
                                       i am endless possibility on the morrow. i vote in mid-
terms, democrat and early. i vote for the woman unfailingly.
i serve my interests. my interests
are public. i write
about identity politics. every story is mine to be told.
 
i am the disorder that fogs
                        my glass of iced lemon water.
i have an affection for white tile, bathe for hours, and prune
            slow and loose, ripe as the juice of summer’s blonde fruits.
                                                i pass out money like contagion. i summer
                                    in the hamptons.
                                                  wanton in my little world of want
                                                  it’s just me among the jet skis, the green lake i ride
                                                  greening sickly, and so many men
                                                           in tuxedos who toast, cheer, and choke
                                                                                                            at bowtie-hold.
 
my eyes ignite, reflecting the plight
                         of the mansions’ floodlights.
                                   overhead planes dazzle
                                                in the dawn-dark like stars and fade.
a flock of murderbirds casts its princely shadow
                                     across my plate of salted meats and eggs.
beyond the willows, i eat my breakfast in the shade.
 
 
 
 

What Does the Moon Mean ?

              for SOPHIE

another poem steadies its dumb gaze , a phase of myopia , on the moon ,
 
                        full in dull reproachment of the day
 
we wanted to know how to love each other more , make our vague hearts ,
 
wild with a selfsame lust for money and fame , give more , do more ,
 
though the idea of love felt more abstract to us
 
with the arrival of every new and alien day               hey !        what can we make of that ?
 
a study of queerness is a study against form , a way of letting the body grow meaningful
 
                        for all it refuses to do
 
                                                                        whatever ! let’s make it new !
 
i found a felicity in life cruising the nightclubs in brooklyn ,
 
meeting friends who fucked like friends and danced , formless under strobe lights
 
that throw around their garish light like suns
 
                                                              approximating an artificial morning
 
under that adornment , where do i exist ?
 
                                     every place has a soundtrack , the dancefloor
 
                        of our lives is made and made              of sound
 
i wanted to make something loud           when the club-lights click off
 
and we go home alone , together , from another ordinary night
 
crowned briefly with our anonymous love , who can say who we were
 
to each other ? where do the versions of ourselves we’ve tried on and discarded go ?
 
i have a song in mind               it goes :
 
                                                             i am not the man my mother loves
 
                                                             i am not the woman i’ve yet to know
 
tell me , where do i exist ?       this brief encounter , a life
 
of sitting on the curb outside the club
 
admiring the full moon , “ immaterial ” blasting out the door ,
 
                                                               our american spirits forgotten
 
in the jean-jacket pocket of a perfect and temporary friend
 
there’s not enough day in the day for all the life we’ve lost and want to live ,
 
so we made a new day to reproach the day ,
 
where we live carelessly without ideas of who we are or what we are able to love
 
                        ( i could be anything i want )
 
                        ( i could be anything i want )
 
looking at the moon                                     you knew
 

David Ehmcke is an MFA candidate in poetry at Washington University in St. Louis, where he was awarded the Howard Nemerov Prize in Poetry. His work has appeared in the Black Warrior Review, The Adroit Journal, Peripheries, Hobart, and elsewhere. David is the poetry editor of The Spectacle and serves as a poetry reader for Guesthouse. He was selected by Megan Fernandes as the winner of the 2023 Maureen Egen Award from Poets & Writers and was selected by Diane Seuss as the runner-up for the 2022 Black Warrior Review Poetry Prize. David is a member of the team at Dorothy, a publishing project and lives in St. Louis.