Poetry By Ian Powell-Palm

      TenSafeFrogs CC




Cash Theory 


This is how it begins.  

Two windows, licking each other’s chests. 

The eye in their shared crotch, bleeding like a horse. 

I don’t have the funds needed to perish. Do you? 

Do you really? The ATM of my veins splayed on the chopping board for the fifth time 

This month, and I still don’t have money on my card.  

This isn’t slaughter. But maybe laughter. Maybe. 

Here are the places your body sucks, like cannibalism.

Whoever said that distance was the best medium an artist 

Could embrace needs to spend some time washing the tears from their 

Mother’s hair. Seriously- did you really think that I could afford 

To be ironic about the family I’ve helped bury? I’ve never even seen 

A wad of cash large enough to buy myself back from whatever the fuck 

Is waiting on the other side of dying.  

Here’s something better: the lights gouged of their breath. Blue husks 

under which we make birth. Better: Water choked into silence, 

Like breathing pangs. 

Is it still freedom if you were beaten into it? Do you know 

How many times I’ve thought about opening my wrists 

Just to witness a river crawl on all fours back to the ground? 

Even in this, I’m impoverished. 

No one I come from 

Has the time to bury a child. 

Death 

Another luxury 

My family could never afford to entertain. 

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​Ian Powell-Palm is a writer, poet, and musician currently living in Belgrade, Montana. His work attempts to interrogate familial trauma, sexual identity, and the resurrection of the dead. You can find more of his work on Instagram at the username @Ipowellp16.