Casey Fuller

holy holy holy

What if everything you leave out is holy? And the rest is cursed? Or, if not cursed, condemned?
 Like an old house? Like an old house,  

when you and your buddies, all eleven and twelve, busted out a back window and, to your great and
          near religious amazement, found  

the water still working? And the electricity to turn on? Was it abandoned? Had no one lived there 
          since you were born? So you went there  

on a worn path in the woods, a mile back, behind the trailer park you and all of your un-showered 
          buddies lived in? And it was summer and you  

were out of school? And your buddies would meet there--drinking water, flicking the lights, punching  
          each other on the shoulders because  

you were still boys? And you hadn’t seen pornography yet? And you didn’t know if your dad 
          was being ridiculous or just out-of-his-mind  

drunk? And you thought it was okay to leave a dog tied up her entire life to a tree because 
          that’s what you’d seen? In a pen pacing  

forever? Everything always the totality of what you took in and never let out? In a pen pacing 
          forever? And you still climbed trees because  

it was so fun? And the idea of burning anything down was so new to you, so clear? It seems inevitable 
          now: your secret place, bringing it down?  

All of your buddies who are poor, who dropped out, who died, who will never read any of this no matter 
          what you’ve written? Or will write? What  

happened to them? What’s happening to them? The secret house? At night?  A tower of pure orange 
          crackling? Are we all holy now? 

but we say we are sad because we cannot see him

My father asleep under the crawlspace of our old house so we cannot 
          find him where  

we expect him to be. My father wrenching my Cousin Claire’s broke car 
          smoking a cigarette  

in the dark. My father driving a Peterbilt truck around the block pulling 
          the horn chain 

looking very happy. My father hunched over asleep in front of the TV, 
          a grid of un-played  

solitary cards before him. My father waking from the crawlspace as I 
          throw small rocks  

into the opening asking him dad are you okay?  My father smoking on 
          the deck at night  

a single porchlight on his face before he turns and looks into the woods. 
          My father not calling  

our house a trailer but calling our trailer the old house on Eagle Drive.  
          My father playing  

cribbage with my Uncle Shaun drinking Bud Light. My father trying to
          figure out the camera  

on his laptop as I read in the other room. My father shrinking from cancer 
          as I deliver mail 

two hours away. My father passing during an ice storm so I cannot be there
          when he goes.  

My mother gifting me my father’s laptop a day after the service saying
          he would want you  

to have it. My father’s three pictures taken on his laptop camera trying
          to figure out his  

laptop’s camera. My father’s three pictures gazing back on a screen. 

men in minnesota

The men seem worried. 

They remind me of ropes. 

Their arms seem pulled long 

by a repetitive motion they 

don’t want to talk about. 

Lines from a ripping seem 

etched in their armpits. 

Black marks cloud 

the back of their hands 

like bad fortunes. 

Thin bones push out 

purple veins in their faces. 

Their jeans are all wrong.  

Their plaid shirts make you think 

they once fit a fuller body. 

They stare out far. 

Frozen lakes and green-blue sky 

is what we think  

they’re thinking of. 

But they are really wondering 

why we let them go.  

All those summers. 

Out there. 

To all those fields. 

Alone. 

About Casey Fuller 

Casey Fuller is an English PhD candidate at the University of North Dakota. His poems have appeared in Nothing to Declare: A Guide to the Flash Sequence, The Portland Review, ZYZYVVA, and other places.