Franklin K. R. Cline
DOMICILE

My fellow Americans:
…………………………….if you listen long enough
…………..to anyone, you’ll hear something worth remembering. It’s

Monday. We are committed
…………………………………to each other, we
…………share. We’re all in this together.

Place your faith in me, flakes
………………………….of sky streaming white and horizontal. The weather’s
………..wavy, worth mentioning.

I am energized and snowy
……………………………….enough to speak for you, I am looking
…………….out of a glass door that sneaks

in toe-biting cold. I haven’t
………………………………..seen any flakes hit the ground but like a slow wham
…………snow keeps coming, becoming trustworthy.

Last Friday, before the snow, at his cherished watering hole,
……………………………….Brandon steered his domicile, his body,
…………..toward my booth; he spoke of piloting

what I think he thinks
…………………………….of as a container down a road void
…………….of street lights and there were stars, he said, he hadn’t seen

since he was a child. I like to see where I am going, so my thoughts
……………………………….on that are at best conflicted. The snow’s
……………hightailing it, a million kamikazes pulsing sideways past

cars slinking
………………………………….on the road outside my apartment like a funeral progression,
………….lights on in the daytime, 15 MPH, careful.

The President echoes through the dirty hallway of my warm apartment complex.
………………………………It’s snowing and I’m not doing anything
………….just watching. My fellow Americans,

it’s snowing here. I suppose some of you
………………………………..have never seen snow. My fellow Americans,
………..have you ever tried to end a sentence with

“my fellow Americans?” It feels wrong, doesn’t it,
………………………………..my fellow Americans? Snow begins a whirly chunk of sky,
………………..never the same, building something that won’t stick around.

Franklin K.R. Cline’s poems have been featured in Banango Street, Matter, Word Riot, and elsewhere. He is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation, a PhD student in English-Creative Writing at the University of Milwaukee-Wisconsin, the nonfiction editor of cream city review, and a member of Woodland Pattern’s Board of Directors. He lives in Milwaukee with three cats and his wife, Rachel Kincaid.

Read more from Cleaver Magazine’s Issue #12.