Field of Strangers

My grandfather wears a red beret.
He’s fixing to read a long beat poem.
My parents are two accountants, trying

to figure out their debts raising me.
Even my brothers are lumberjacks,
ready to cut me down like I’m a forest.

In this “field of strangers,” this flat surface
of the world, I am unable to retreat.
I must play along – clap when grandpa

blasts his words over a bored audience.
I must let my taxes be executed
by Mom and Dad, sent to the IRS.

I must pretend I’m not a grove of oaks,
that saws should work elsewhere.
Love used to be a part of all of us.

Now we no longer care for occupations
we’d never have become if not for pain,
or laughter drying in the desert,

cacti falling onto the dusty ground.
I must somehow revive their jobs,
so they can breathe, talk like they used to.

It’s me who should wear a new outfit,
the sanitation worker who loads his truck,
drives into a distance no one can track.

Donald Illich has published poetry recently in The MacGuffin and Okay Donkey. He won Honorable Mention in the Washington Prize book contest. His book, Chance Bodies, was published by The Word Works in 2018.