Max Cohen

 

BAD MORNING IN A BAD YEAR

The whole world sleeps
west of where I sit.
How much life can fit on your chin?
It’s possible
to cut wood with wood.
What sort of pain
would you feel first?
I don’t know what full
means. It’s awful.
I am spoiled western.
Milk makes me.
It always has. I see my sister nursing
her adorable bastard. How
do I love him?
His entire body is milk and air.
I don’t know how to explain.
Everything I could ever know is theoretical.
I am jealous. I hate
these bodily divisions.
When I stumble out drunk &
quiet I hear them
throwing salt
and debating who will thrash me
first. I don’t enjoy this,
but I do it a lot.
I’m trying my best to avoid
my failures, the heat and the weight.
When I feel good
I don’t know how to be.

Max Cohen is an M.F.A. candidate at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. His work has appeared in sixth finch, alice blue, Ghost Proposal, and ILK. He drinks iced tea, even in winter.