three poems

by ryan skaryd

a boy before gone things

because a year ago a boy was folding pants
that he wore to a funeral a week before
forgetting the card from the service
in the back pocket and Miranda’s face
tries to stare back as hard as she can
even if to say there are better pictures anyway
and six months before the pool
and before the chlorine tasted cooling
like the menthol cigarette
the boy forgets that loss is just another
reminder that he killed a snake plant
which, according to Google, is impossible
so instead, he collects thirty houseplants
to make up for the one dead, somewhere now
out in the back by the lake
where he saw an otter once
and snake plants are impossible to kill,
but how long does it take to decay?

Kafkaesque

We made it
past the life
made of copper
and mosquito bites.
Then the clouds
were like plastic
wrap, equally shiny
and selfishly suffocating—
wait here, for something like
your own body,
but instead, find
the one made
from ruin
and dust

merlot

I will stay here—bury myself here—
under this gravel scraping my scalp.

Leave me a shovel that I can reach.
The roots remind me of lightning

cracking the dirt and sopping
my messes. If only.

Debt in ten dollar bills will sprout
so the surface looks great again and green.

Black as a beetle’s wing here
and above only pinches of light

because winter seemed way too long
and red was never my color.

Ryan Skaryd holds an MFA from the University of Central Florida in Orlando. His chapbook “bottle rockets” was published last year by ZED Press, which is available here.

Ryan donated to the Humane Society.