Sam

Sam sent me some architecture in the mail.
The box was the biggest thing around:
the guys in Receiving needed to take off
their own roof, & didn’t want to sign for it,
something about liability if it all collapsed.
When I opened it up I saw what they meant.
HVAC vents were dangling like limp
hospital tubing, gargoyles hung all angry,
thirsty for the water that would name them.
It was like part of an imperium
had been cared off & necromanced,
but it just stood there calm amid the cardboard.
So I rang up Sam & asked why, why me?
Didn’t you like it? Sam asked. I said
I liked it fine, was very grateful & all that.
Then we had to check in, how was mom’s health
after that fall, how would the voting go.
A few years passed. When we hung up
I saw Sam’s language up in the cloistered light,
then mine there too, like landed butterflies flexing.
The structure giant had been listening,
adding our breath to its hoard. I thought
that was the juncture in which I’d fall quiet.
But really it’s when I started to speak.

–W.M. Lobko

W. M. Lobko’s poems, reviews, & interviews have appeared in journals such as Iowa Review, Kenyon Review, Boston Review, Spinning Jenny, & Guernica. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, & was a semi-finalist for the 92Y / Boston Review "Discovery" Prize. He studied at the University of Oregon & currently teaches in the New York City area. Read more at wmlobko.com.