Two Poems by Anders Carlson-Wee

Old Church

Haunted so we didn’t follow him
inside. Posing at a broken window
he thumbed the dusty pages, preaching
like our dad. Between passages
he puffed his cheeks and wormed
his fat tongue between forked fingers.
This is what your mom worships,
he said. We never told him to stop,
just started chucking rocks from the fence.
First at the shards of stained glass
gummed in the frame like shark teeth.
Then at him. Then at him harder,
his face popping up between our fire
like a self-winding Jack in the Box.
The bad throw that connected
ricocheted so we didn’t see, just heard
our cousin scream. We froze, bracing
for darkness to burst out the door
and roar toward us. But it didn’t.
The heavy hinges creaked and Scott
stumbled out holding his lowered head,
pleading for help. At ten years old
I was ready for rage, even death,
even ghosts. But not this: his blonde hair
bright with blood, his real moan.

After Fighting

Sometimes my brother and I let go
of rage and snuck in the garage to cut

fistfuls of beef from the chest freezer,
then lay side by side in the pines waiting

for animals to come. We didn’t speak.
Hardly even breathed as we played

dead on the rust-colored needles,
the clods of meat cupped loosely

in our upturned palms. And if we waited
long enough, if we let the clods thaw

and seep their blood-deep sweetness,
sometimes a chipmunk slunk up

and nuzzled into our isthmus, crossing
timidly from his hand to mine,

mine to his, chewing. Its hunger
like an invisible line strung between us.

Anders Carlson-Wee is the author of The Low Passions (W.W. Norton, 2019). He has received fellowships from the NEA, the McKnight Foundation, Bread Loaf, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. His work has appeared in Ploughshares, New England Review, Poetry Daily, AGNI, The Sun, The Iowa Review, Best New Poets, and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. His debut chapbook, Dynamite, won the 2015 Frost Place Chapbook Prize. He is co-director of the award-winning poetry film, Riding the Highline, and his work has been translated into Chinese. Winner of Ninth Letter’s Poetry Award, Blue Mesa Review’s Poetry Prize, New Delta Review’s Editors’ Choice Prize, and the 2017 Poetry International Prize, he lives in Minneapolis.