3
Children mine under the desert for their food
Boarders expand far past their short noses
As they chip at the walls w/ stone pickaxes
Always one jump scare away from oblivion
Their leader wafts attention away from wrath
By sacrificing his own holdings he vanishes
Now the team can get back to the real work
Excavating through torn up abandoned mines
But first let me tell you about how we got here
Once there was a well & inside a lost squid
The villagers didn’t know what they were doing
They fed on scraps & prayed in the corners
And then my son who is not a hero freed them
From the supposed hauntings of their wildness
2
At home my son awakens fresh & evenly wild
Static robbed him of his rank & possessions
So much can be said about rebirth that isn’t
He scrambles together an inventory shoddy
Yet necessary as it’s a day’s walk to the desert
He does not eat he is not hungry resurgence
Doesn’t cost the stomach anything anymore
His name is his only armor now & yes I envy
Anyone’s ability to walk right out of the house
Having just lost a great battle & greater still
Night as it envelops him like a quiet snowfall
It is late when he arrives back on the scene
And before he can rejoin the group his body
Greets another quick death from an arrow
1
Mortality hangs for some like a brass knocker
Atop a threshold of an endless chrome palace
Each rap comes w/ a tiny cost that adds up
And the cards get reshuffled into new patters
For others like myself we just keep on running
Around the place until we tire ourselves into
Submission or another fancier word for peace
Exhausting options feels like the only choice
When my sone wakes again from his last death
He is mad & embarrassed & still only human
I must confess I cannot assist his wandering
So I watch him stumble around making fresh
Mistakes as each wonderful blunder awakens
An invigorating drive into his wounded heart
0
Regrettably I lied to my son after his first death
We had no idea more were to follow so I said
Not again you must never leave w/out us again
How was I to know he would take up fleeting
As a profession? Kids today keep dangerous
Hobbies & the best boundaries we could draw
Were those around overindulgences & war
Resurgence is a weapon that can’t be weirded
And now we wait for the one great rebellion
That might eradicate allegiances to the divine
Drive that keeps him from staying in the grave
And brings him back to us even harder still
From adolescence grows the desire for more
How dangerous the unquenchable do become
Bonus Life
And if you asked him he would say it is normal
For a kid & friends to wander into the unknown
Passages w/ nothing but wit & an empty sack
We are all clear they say back to each other
When a new cavern opens onto untold nothing
That’s when you asked the coin to fall face up
Just one more time please just one more time
And when it does wonder to who exactly do you owe
This extra life to but no one can answer back
We are all clear they said in the white room
While you held onto threads pulling through
To another chance victory bc every last life
Is a bonus life & you see that in his scarred eyes
The way the blue earths turn again & again
RJ Equality Ingram works as a used bookseller for Goodwill Industries of the Collumbia Willamette. Their first collection of poetry The Autobiography of Nancy Drew is forthcoming from White Stag Publishing in early 2024. RJ received their MFA in creative writing from Saint Mary’s College of California with concentrations in poetry & creative nonfiction. More work can be found in Phoebe Journal, Miniskirt Magazine & Citron Review among others. RJ’s cat Brenda lost a leg designing her memory palace.