Two Poems by Michael Juliani

The World Is Not Astonished

I daydreamed often
about beating people up.

Touch was so rare those months
A.’s fingers felt like a doctor’s

probing for a lump. We heard
roars lifting from Prospect Park

like the cypresses were rising
against us. South Slope’s avenues

filled, sordid like a campus
after a football rivalry win—

wives on each other’s
shoulders, grade-schoolers

protecting their fathers’ beers.
My neighbor doused

his barbecue, ran into the fray,
the charcoal’s last gasps

reeking the dimensions
of my bedroom. We touched

how we did before our spit
could kill each other,

thin bands of white lace
and blown-out hair between my fingers

as we caught our breath
and listened. America intended

to cut this night
like a cake, parcel out a piece

to everyone, not just two
long-absent lovers beholding

each other’s nakedness
blue in the summer twilight.

*

Kingdom of Breath

White roses, old Volks
tarp-hidden, dreamcatchers,

pinwheels, surplus tents —
this moment a breeze, I think

I’ve been here, not just
this road, this house: pallid, burdened

single mother pinching
spiders off her quilt,

kissing matches
on the prey — I’m home

in these streets,
netless hoops tumble

like ramparts, buzzcut boys
hang on the rims, neck hair

sharp to soothing hand, my
mother taught me to leap

like them, touched me to that
boyhood flame — it journeys

ash to the last
breath, final prayers

in my body, which was
always footsteps

speaking: hello little kid
nothing really

needs you

*

Michael Juliani is a poet, editor, and writer from Pasadena, California. His poems have appeared in outlets such as the Bennington Review, Sixth Finch, Epiphany, Bear Review, SARKA, and the Washington Square Review. He lives in Los Angeles.