Poetry by Seth Leeper

              stanze CC



​
dream of the lake

in this one i’m your son again and you chose me, you chose us, your first family, so there was
no shutting of a door, there was no boy at the stairs, there was no second departure because
you never left to start with, though at the base of the dream i can hear the anguish of your
heart, and it hisses like a snake peeling off every layer of its skin, and it rings like the bell of a
premature grave, but no matter, you’re here, and i am sitting beside you on the dock while you
try for catfish or a naive bluegill, and i am silent, no more the chatterbox that scared away the
salmon, that told the schools to run in the other direction, in fact my mouth is gone and in its
place i have drawn a bright red curve daddy, and i hold your pole while you grab a tuna
​sandwich from the pail, and i never once think of turning the rod around to catch you





​moon jumper

my father talks to me in the house we shared
for a stint in my youth and all the walls have
been replaced with stars and black emptiness
and in this iteration i can see past the bluster
to the man everyone knew as compassionate
and approachable and i can see what strangers
saw when they needed directions or a hello to
interrupt lives filled with underappreciation
yet still he taunts me because he knows he’s
the key and just when i’m about to grasp the
bronze trophy he jumps just out of my reach
and up to the moon where he places his hands
on his hips and looks down on me with the
bemusement reserved for reading a christmas
card with a misspelled name​


​

Seth Leeper is a queer poet. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Broadkill Review, The Summerset Review, White Wall Review, Coastal Shelf, otoliths, decomp journal, SCAB, Gertrude Press, and others. He holds an M.A. in Special Education from Pace University and B.A. in Creative Writing and Fashion Journalism from San Francisco State University. He lives and teaches in Brooklyn, NY.

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