Poetry by Justin Lacour

                 Bruce Guenter CC



Sonnet (What next?)
 
Did you see the news?  It’s a concussed day 
in the republic.  Two girls in bikinis tossing 
a rubber brain back and forth.  Is this history?  
No.  History is what happens when you’re trying 
to make mojitos, put kids to bed, when you’re trying 
not to look.  Please don’t cry.  I’ll do the thing
where I pound the table so hard
food jumps off the plate and into my
mouth.  That used to cheer you up.
There are crowds & debris, sad songs in the streets.
I want to carry you away from all this.
I’ll put you down some place safe, like where the forest 
has taken back the strip club, where no one sees 
your tears, & the stage belongs to the trees.




​
Sonnet (this fire)

We are sitting by a fire,
one of those theater fires
made of red and yellow and orange
tissue paper, a light bulb at the center,
a little fan inside to make the flames flicker.
We’re surrounded by trees made of chicken
wire & papier mache.  I can’t see past 
them.  The sky is flat & there’s no moon
or stars.  I don’t know where we are or how 
we got here.  But your face is kind & the 
fake flames shine in your glasses.  You say 
“Beyond the trees, lies a darkness, followed 
by a darker darkness,” which is the same as 
saying the only place that matters is here. 
​

Justin Lacour lives in New Orleans and edits Trampoline: A Journal of Poetry.

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