Davy Knittle
gravy strain
thin a little ice for me
but keep the slip
melt slouches melt-ward
and it’s regular bad
is it time yet
I think it’s not yet time to
wear my feelings but also
read them: top them on a pizza
pour them in a sinkhole
drink them from a fountain
bake them into Pennsylvania and
here we go for a regional beverage
tour in the car: birch beer
: teaberry ice cream milkshake
black cherry wishniak
a year of new soup every day
we like a lot of it
we drink that milkshake twice
a waitress has gender trouble
and ways to ask if we’re pals
will we share the check
do neither of us want a meat side
when we swap our plates
she says “I saw that” and smiles
when she’s sure we’re together
she’ll only hold her eye with me
it’s normal—someone jokingly proposes
a bill to offset the expense of having kids
as recompense for transfolks’ unsafe lives
we keep after that indemnified baby
find 10,000 places we’re scared to pee
win a bad puppy at a goldfish toss
hold onto our fair vouchers
and he’ll grow up to be a boy
join our neighbors organization
or sit on a municipal board :
in a meeting see accident footage
: an ATV plowing into a hedge
by a public gazebo
see photos of the park a year before
with grandmas in it: a ceremony
naming the hedge for a woman who shares
“Flora,” Andrew’s grandma’s name
Flora losing an object that belongs to us
you reclaiming it and football dancing
in her garage—blowing out like candles
the slights that appear then disappear
: assembling boxes of donuts
donated to queer prom—breathing
on vegetables with our hippo breath
serving grey vegetables at a library meeting
opening a catering company to do
institutional brunch: closing
at three each day to go bowling
planting salad mix and waiting out
its 55 days to full development
clearing our time to teach the puppy
to rise his baby wings up for the sky
Davy Knittle’s poems and reviews have appeared recently in Fence, The Recluse, Columbia Poetry Review and Jacket2. He lives in Philadelphia where he curates the City Planning Poetics series at the Kelly Writers House.
Read more from Cleaver Magazine’s Issue #21.
