Poetry by John Gallaher

Tomas Soldan CC




We’re Going to Get it Together in the Country


I want to say “love” and mean it the way a radio means static. 
The cat dies. I have to dig a hole. Holes 
are impossible. Even cat-sized holes are impossible. In mob movies, 
suddenly someone’s standing in a rectangle four feet deep. 
It would’ve taken me a week to dig a hole like that. 
Then we have dogs. I’m sizing them up. I look back and forth 
between dog and yard. Life is absurd, and if I want to find meaning, 
I’m going to have to hurry. I tell myself that like it’s news, like it’s the ground 
offering advice, but it’s only about gravity and shoes. 
And now all is landscape, and landscape thoughts. 
It’s building a condominium in my brain. And I don’t know why. 
Of course I know why. We all know why. Do I have to say it? 
Are you looking for something? If so, scan right to left. 
You’ll see more that way, as your brain is used to going left to right. 

        *

You can only have the thoughts you can have, unless 
you’re having someone else’s thoughts. “This is my brat 
summer,” is an example of someone else’s thoughts. 
Someone else’s thoughts seem so much more fun right now. 
“Hello from the empty Midwest, where I went to die” 
is an example of hyperbole, as is “soul mates,” unless 
you’re talking about a pet, like a pet rock, which no one 
talks about anymore, but they’re still out there, 
your lonely soul mates. “Don’t challenge your pet rock 
to the quiet game, or holding your breath underwater” 
is a marketing campaign. Keep your senses tuned, all 9 
of them, or 7, or 32. We’ll get through this, right? Hang in there, 
Baby? That’s an example of a coping 
mechanism. Like knock-knock jokes or God. 

​




How to Fake Your Death & Move to Another Country


I have one of those faces people feel entirely comfortable 
saying the most absurd things to, like “good morning!” 
or “isn’t this great!” like something the angel of death would come up with 
between brushing and flossing, 
but what I mean is the distance is rising from inside 
and we’ve no way of measuring it. Update 
on our summer vacation: exit stage left, 
or cue the orchestra, like one pondering questions 
about the origin of the universe 
under the smellitizers at Disneyland, mixing vanilla 
and cookies to put me in the mood for the satisfaction 
of thrilling occurrence. I don’t know how everyone else feels 
about it, but each night I take a little white pill, a little blue one 
and a little red one, and I feel very patriotic. 

            *

I wonder how much longer we can go, pretending we’re not all going 
to be replaced by slightly more polite versions of ourselves, 
with nametags in better script and working weekends. 
I think maybe that’s just my suspension of disbelief talking again, 
as one remembering fleetingly how one used to think 
by curling the brow or by rubbing two sticks together. A ‘sort of’ 
that’s a lot more tenuous than it feels before you say it, 
like how not being in a wreck on the way home is ‘sort of’ like Christmas. 
The part about suspending disbelief, for instance. 
I think I could do more with that. I just tried a smile. 
I even tried “Good morning!” and I didn’t do half bad, 
though it’s afternoon now. So I’m trying out that the first step 
of the journey contains the journey. That sounds 
great. I’ve wanted all my life to believe something like that. 

​



John Gallaher's most recent book is My Life in Brutalist Architecture, a poem-memoir on adoption. His eighth collection, Radio Good Luck, will be out in 2028 from Four Way Books, along with a chapbook, HINGE in 2026, from Sixth Finch. Gallaher lives in northwest Missouri and co-edits the Laurel Review.




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