Poetry By LC Gutierrez

John Buie CC




Backflip Aubade


Daylight slapped you sharp 
and left a question mark.
Dropped you naked and bare-handed 
into a plot of deep thinking, 
when you would be content to shit and shave.

Where’s the milk and where’s the honey? 
you ask Alexa
why her fingers never run through your hair.
The horizon lights a long Ukraine
and smoldering strip of Gaza.
Swaths of Iran lie locked in Uncle’s jaw.

Today the coffee smells as would 
it were boiling oceans, 
risen to wilt life around you. 
(Your name tag tries to tease 
and reads “invasive species.”)

You roll your divan away 
from the window, stealthily, 
lest you become a jump threat.
Still you flip back over a seawall
of hungry conscience, dust off 

a photo of the wife, dog, and kids
hum Amazing Grace
how sweet the hot cakes, then
reach for your own tiny miracle
when you trade this can’t go on 
for yes I will.



LC Gutierrez is an erstwhile academic and product of many places in the deep southern US and the Caribbean. He currently lives, writes, teaches, and plays trombone in Madrid, Spain. His work is published or forthcoming in many wonderful journals, such as Notre Dame Review, Tampa Review, Rust and Moth, Hobart, Blood Orange Review, and Trampset. He is a poetry reader for West Trade Review.

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