Robert Beveridge | I Heard His Heart Stopped While He Slept & More

I Heard His Heart Stopped While He Slept

The hum of electric clippers, the rumble
of the engine in the garage. The door
held shut with rope. The roast
in the kitchen ready for the blade.
A medicine cabinet with prescriptions
going back to the eighties. It is
time to struggle out of bed, stumble
to the shower, find out whether you
have hot water this morning. Get
dressed for another day on the couch
after you throw the roast in the slow
cooker, watch cable news and think
about the imminent end of the world.

Newborn

The sky nurses on black milk
an infant it cries to its Mother
for black bread to wash down
the sputum from smokestacks
the snow of the void

Totality

Hum shakes room
whispers against snare blast
a break in the graveyard
to blot out the sun

you try and whistle
but stare at patches
of earth, imagine
they move. Moon, clouds,

expectant headstones call you

Black Belt

I stuck another shim
under the boll weevils’
nest. It likes to sag
in the northwest corner.
What causes this? Is there
some frantic construction,
a conference with mandatory
attendance, a misplaced
kilt that calls the entire
society to feast? Do they
have intel on a future fire
ant invasion? We might
never know, but each
night I leave them rhubarb
on the altar, the stock
pages in the kitchen,
invest as directed.

Clubfoot

and with the proper chants and skills with thread and needle he was able to add another ring finger to his right hand

and with the eyes and ears around him he was able to absorb the proper recipe for cioppino

and with not too many extra rations of ore he was able to build a small and comfortable hut that housed him, his concubine, their manservant, and three months’ worth of athletic footwear in case of emergency

and when the wind blew in from the south he along with the whole village could still smell the endless battlefield that used to be a cornfield but now it only grows bad smell

and directly above his head the sun did a small dance and the entire village heard it say that he was to be crowned the winner of the annual cartwheel competition

Robert Beveridge (he/him) makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry on unceded Mingo land (Akron, OH). Recent/upcoming appearances in Breathe, Playlist of the Damned, and Linked Verse, among others.