Unofficial Confessions.

D.A. Powell

I shared a rig with a cowboy at the junkyard. We sat on a freezer door. He was a jagged can and I got ripped.

 

Some creatures grow in darkness. Some flowers bloom at night. I am willing to be inappropriate. But not when it’s light. 

Across the way, a man held Jupiter and his twelve moons up in a single glass. One was a boy moon. Oh, that astronomy.

I stood by the throne and gave that thirsty man my cup. He lifted it with one hand and tied off with the other. 

 

Later, he come at me with a knife. I had to keep my sharp eye out. I did not sleep.

They asked me why didn’t you leave. Why didn’t I leave? In a word: his horse was the last horse in town. He put me up.

 

 

D.A. Powell’s most recent collections are Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys (2012), which received the National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry, and Repast (2014), both from Graywolf Press. He lives in San Francisco. Photo credit: Matt Valentine.