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dear radio
BY IAN BURNETTE
Kenyon College, ’18
2015 Adroit Prize for Poetry: Recipient
/today the story of a boy
and his revelatory revolver
/the pinball he took
like a need to be swallowed
one night last March
when the air spun with snow
and bent your signal
at angles of terrible sound
/a single strand of frequency
was all it took for him
to let a round off into his cortex
/pained and thin as honeycomb
or moon mud. his parents say
it wasn’t the sound
that woke them /but something
in the air /invisibilia
/the hold you have on all of us
/can i say he sailed away
in the golden hold
of a great ship filled with light?
/is any vessel excuse enough
for the cargo the bullet made?
/i don’t know
/i’ve been trying to write
this story down for a long time
but no loose hands will tie together
/dear radio i’m asking for a lot
/i’m prying for answers
/why didn’t you save him from revelation
if not from the gun?
/i’m taking back all this time held
hostage to your drag-race love
/i’m drawing perfect circles in the dark.
