Night Swim
BY JACOB LINDBERG
2020 Gregory Djanikian Scholar in Poetry, Finalist
Somewhere along the shore, a strange flare, the house-light
Off a beer can. Our backs turned toward summer. August then.
It holds us like a mother. It trunks us like spare tires.
When J butterflies the lake’s heart, when he recites
The notebook under his bed—a list of quick ends—
We don’t hear him, no one’s near him. One by one, we pull
Ourselves up the dock. On the old planks, we fill up
Our clothes again, our leavings let loose different notes—
We step with different hurries—from the dock, like children
Sneaking away from some old instrument—not knowing
Which song we played, which J lurched from, slow and hard
on the sand—I hear it then: his feet in the crabgrass,
The dock moaning its shallow music, while, on the lake,
Spiders slink on all eights, loons lull, sticks kink up like snakes
On the shore, where J sits, where J flounders—
Where, when I ask where he’s been (I feel older), he dries
Each eye on my shoulder.
Pallbearer
BY JACOB LINDBERG
2020 Gregory Djanikian Scholar in Poetry, Finalist
The first of winter sets xylophones across the trees—
like the last time we spoke, after basketball practice,
your dad hung beaver pelts from the garage ceiling.
In the lantern light, they were wind chimes;
in night’s breath, given second life. So often, I’m trapped
between the beaver and the hide, tracking what kind
of friends we might’ve been—I’ll see you this weekend,
you said, two days before Thanksgiving, two days before
my dad put on his uniform, my mom’s face was wet;
and for weeks after, I saw you sliding up the creek bed,
unannounced, dragging the plastic sled by its yellow thread.
We carried you past the pews. That night, I saw you hanging
and could not turn away. Each November, memory spreads
its rough coat, I track certain animals in uncertain light—
I wrapped the animals I skinned around your hands and neck
BY JACOB LINDBERG
2020 Gregory Djanikian Scholar in Poetry, Finalist
I came out of the long grass. I held
a stick. I followed you down the road.
The bullfrogs sang mean songs with
their soft bodies. I piled their young
in little hills. Every crest looked like
a story we’d been told. In another story,
I turn eleven. You dipped your finger
into the pink cake without permission.
I grabbed the small egg of your head.
The blood drip down the wall trim,
the pocket of your eye. I watched you
cry. For the rest of your life, your brow
forgets to grow hair at the gash site,
the dimple on your cheek remembers the stick.
❅
You tell me you’re suspended
and follow me into the woods. The bully by
the basketball hoops, you say, he fell face-down.
Children held up their little fists. I didn’t
want to hurt him, I just don’t know what happened.
We never see the dangerous animals
in the woods; only in the yard, only at
dawn or dusk, moments from rest. At the trash
can, black bears. At the edge of the trees,
wolves calling the dogs. Inside us, a bobcat
screaming for another bobcat to lick.
He was hurting Michael, you said, hurting Michael bad.
The trees sounded like garbage bags.
Leaves flapped like hand-tied knots.
❅
The attic is full of noises. We tell sister
bears slide down in our deepest sleep;
when our arms move slowly, we want
to wake, we know we’re dreaming. I drag
my comforter to your bunk. Sister’s crawled
downstairs to sleep by our parents’ bed.
I think of stories we’ve told. I want the bad
things to only be animals and, so often,
I’m scared of myself. In your bunk,
I wrap my blanket around you
so you have two coats. When the sun
splits the maples, I slip down, fall asleep,
curl cruelly in my sheets. When you ask,
I say, too warm.
❅
Brother, understand we pass down stories through our bodies.
Back then, I sold you for twenty pieces of silver.
I waited outside the house like it was a pit. I carried clubs
in my hand. In the woods, I straddled the dead tree
over the ravine. Its blight grew out of me, and I fashioned
my pain inside you, left a dog limping in your stomach.
I said nothing right but barked as a dog would bark,
so you listened. When I howled, you howled back
as best you could. You had to, I said. That kid had it coming.
Trains passed alongside us, horned, covered our mouths
like moss nets a den. When I say, I am trying to become
a better animal, I mean I have killed goodness in you.
When I say I’m not a good big brother, I mean I haven’t
protected you from myself.
What Stays in the Lake
BY JACOB LINDBERG
2020 Gregory Djanikian Scholar in Poetry, Finalist
Dad returns heavy,
off-duty, and exhausted.
From the upstairs,
I cannot see his face.
Mosquitos open
their mouths across
our arms. I pop one.
I chart the blood
in the pre-morning—
the flitting insects full
of everyone but themselves.
There are lakes
on our skin. I wait on
what’s happened somewhere
else. I wait on
the hook of his arm
on my shoulder, the heel
of his foot to stall
the morning, which drips
through the maples,
before I ask him who,
before I ask him how.
Mom Hangs Dad’s Paintings in the House
BY JACOB LINDBERG
2020 Gregory Djanikian Scholar in Poetry, Finalist
Landscapes I grew tall in,
Long grass, poplars. Always ducks
Flying to and from something—
Dropping from the air,
Injured, like my father leaving art school
For the county jail. Then, midnights
On the force. A promotion. He learns the stories
Of dead things, an oil clotting up his wings.
This is a boring story. A man providing
For everyone but himself. A man taught
He’s good at dangerous things, aimed at what
He’s never wanted, weapons fitted
For hands. Even this pencil, I hold out
To him, young, asking for dinosaurs,
Hungry Tyrannosaurus Rexes…
Where’s the blood? I say. The predator
Is smiling, the predator is clean and plays
With the Stegosaurus. I say, this is not how
It’s supposed to be. I say, this is not what I wanted,
And he begins, again, with the eraser end.
