"Every Moment Can Have Permanance" by David Rodriguez

Riskless nights’ suburban memory: a Stop

through the plosive, my heart in soil, always

punished for one reason or another: because

a chain net dulled the family basketball, killer

bees murdered Texas, I’d already been a devil

with my cream-bleached towels, rug burns,

ignored Post-its. I copied books on tropical

diseases, saw elephantiasis before I had

pubic hair, learned age was a wheelbarrow;

I couldn’t be careful enough.

Gallants get splinters. Corners widow-glint.

A classmate electrocuted by a hair curler or

bashed in the head with a slugger bat, rolls

lost to super-glue, marker huffs, choking,

ticks—all, said Mom, because of divorce,

the mother of risk. Were we better than that?

My parents together in ruin? I used to wear

a scapular to bed. Complained to my dad,

who said: A life well lived learns every day.

Venus flytraps were his favorite topic.

David Rodriguez is a writer and teacher based in New Orleans with an MFA from Florida State University. He has previously been published in the New Orleans Review, The Southeast Review, The Sandy River Review, Hawai'i Review, and Jarfly, among other places.