Matthew Kosinski

Knife Month

She became the first firefighter in Teaneck history. In college
I tried to score oxycontin from her. Not at the time
but later. I made a bad assumption. No one asked me to be sorry.
Have you heard him sing the hook from prison? There’s a codified theory inside of it,
something I’ve been calling “savior music.” Christ, whose mustache was beautiful,
that mustache is beautiful. At the time and later. Depression
as good a reason as any for asking. Conventional wisdom balks.
A lifetime of courtesies could be bartered and lost.
At this moment the throne slips behind plate glass. Who cares how the money piles up
when the telephone cannot voice your desire without dissolving.
[A firelike crackle.] Some people’s problems
involve too many walls. I walk freely in an arc around the pope
to discover he is cardboard in his back. I like that
this conversation always ends up at [emoji of knife] and June is knife month always.

 

Matthew Kosinski is managing editor at Pithead Chapel. His work has appeared in The Millions, Always Crashing, A Bad Penny Review, and elsewhere. You can find more of his work at www.matthewkosinski.com.
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About Posit Editor

Susan Lewis (susanlewis.net) is the Editor-in-chief and founder of Posit (positjournal.com) and the author of ten books and chapbooks, including Zoom (winner of the Washington Prize), Heisenberg's Salon, This Visit, and State of the Union. Her poetry has appeared in anthologies such as Walkers in the City (Rain Taxi), They Said (Black Lawrence Press), and Resist Much, Obey Little (Dispatches/Spuyten Duyvil), as well as in journals such as Agni, Boston Review, The Brooklyn Rail, Conjunctions online, Diode, Interim, New American Writing, and VOLT.