Two Poems

Daniel Edward Moore

Déjà vu

If the point was to turn away
they’ll be no looking back.

No Lot’s wife to pour like salt
on the frozen years.

No unhinged god to hate the
peppered woman in us all.

Fast forward if you think remorse
could use a few more slaves.

Rewind if the heart of suffering
needs your chest to live.

It’s 6:00 AM and I’m 14,
the eight tracks’ stuck on Helpless.

I almost cut my hair.
You almost taught my children.

Let Not Your Hearts Be Troubled

The rumors are true.
I love being ruined
in a flash fiction way
with two hundred words or less

opening my heart
with the jaws of life,
after three broken ribs
and four pints of blood

leave by-standers shocked
by how well I can sing
as their harmony’s make
grace sound amazing.

Strangers planted crosses
by the road in case
Jesus needs a tan,
in case he decides

to return some day
to this puff
of a planet
in flames.

Daniel Edward Moore is a bi/queer married man with Aspergers who lives in Washington on Whidbey Island. He has work forthcoming in The Meadow, The Chiron Review, Delta Poetry Review, Book of Matches, Drunk Monkeys, Sandy River Review, Xavier Review and Third Street Review. His book, “Waxing the Dents,” is from Brick Road Poetry Press.

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