Matt Borczon's Oak Cabinet Legacy, Perils Of Bad Jobs, And Being Hung In The Tulsa County Jail

It Was

a story
I heard
many times
both from
Sherrie and
from Dottie
her mom

how one time 

in a department store 

Dottie was 

really wanting

 this beautiful

 oak cabinet

 but told her 

kids she wanted 

but did not 

need it 

when Sherrie 

says mom 

we have 

all the things 

we need 

but none 

of the things 

we want 

so Dottie 

bought it 

with the 

child support 

check they 

only sometimes 

got in 

the mail

Sherrie died

about ten

years later 

of an 

overdose 

proof that 

she was 

always more 

interested 

in what 

she wanted 

than what 

she needed 

and Dottie

died at 80 

of old age 

and a 

broken heart

I don’t know 

which of 

her kids 

got that 

cabinet when 

they cleaned 

out her house. 

Today is all 

about the 

grinding gears 

the rattle 

and hum 

the icy 

wind across 

my windshield 

as I 

drive too 

fast towards 

a job 

I really 

don’t want 

to go to 

at all. 

I want you to 

Hang me 

in the 

Tulsa County 

stars sing 

me lovely

lady May 

I want 

you to 

hold me 

like the 

baby Jesus 

in the 

painting of 

the 3 

handed Madonna 

I want 

you to 

make me 

a pallet 

on your 

floor cry 

me a river 

love me 

like a 

blues song 

drive me 

like you 

stole me 

out of 

a banker’s 

four car 

garage.

Matthew Borczon is a nurse and Navy Corpsman from Erie Pa. He served in the busiest combat hospital in Afghanistan from 2010-2011; he writes about his experiences on Camp Bastion and about the difficulties he has had since coming home. 

 

Howie Good Returns With Invisible Powers, The Titanic Shipyard, And Bonfire-Sized Roses

 In Lieu of Flowers

I told the doctors flat out, “Cure me or kill me,” only to be strapped down like the ladder on the roof of the white work van, but not before I managed to channel the zealotry of a martyr an declare every day should be a mental health day, something that was feeling suddenly necessary now that a first cousin about my age had died from an overdose, an unsuspected heart condition, invisibility, if the invisible is defined as “what light cannot illuminate,” or just so much sadness.

&

My dad tried to kill himself three times. Well, four if you count the time he fell asleep smoking in bed and woke up with the mattress on fire. That country no longer exists. I remember because I arrived on a ship built in the same shipyard as the Titanic. Others who came from faraway don’t want to believe their own memories. Each night the moon grows darker. The family dog wails like a soul in hell demented by unbearable pain. A lot of things happen that just kind of happen; for example, the human skulls on sale on Etsy.

&

I was born in the rain and the dark – a vague but sinister omen. Almost immediately, familiar words were given unfamiliar meanings; familiar objects, unfamiliar names. I grew up surrounded on three sides by ghosts imprisoned behind barbed wire. Today’s rain falls on yesterday. A 100-year-old former concentration camp guard has been arrested in Bavaria on 3,518 counts of being an accessory to murder. Up, you corpses! Get up! Wounds heal from the inside out. It’s only a matter of weeks perhaps before there are wild roses the size of bonfires.

Howie Good is the author of Failed Haiku, a poetry collection that is the co-winner of the 2021 Grey Book Press Chapbook Contest and scheduled for publication in summer 2022