Tyler Flynn Dorholt
On the Pretense for Seeing
I hear the helicopter flying over fields
out of a truck I live close to need
some of the away hits an everywhere
my family tabbing chance outside the fall
we are driving around in skin into tradition
unlike the heights we remain so low in our shells
and in esteem the orange goes out the yellow is for sale
down the street scarred coins every land escapes
every person is a passing liminal hymn when
life feels good for another Hollywood I would
like all of the windows draped
I am walking across another sunlight
a dim and frightened body bulb breaking
and I clobber the quiet
a bobber above a rioting copper splash
sound between the leaves is leaving me
on the ground to turn another corner
I hear a piano through the wall
the fingers are bleeding
the keys are mostly missing.
On the Pretense for Becoming
All night in my sleep the legitimacy
to be in a room of oneself to find
some distant outlook on the fog
on our hill on a drive how the valley lifts
I return as tablecloth, salmon, blueberry,
the early part of the day my son staring
he's on to us aside small trophy gourds
back-and-forth orchards I can be
a better person listening to discoveries
I can understand the hill outside
the middle-of-the-night bodies
the tiny build of headaches
and how long it will take to feel
complete I do not know this love
I inhabited a decade
I can now hear my son breathing
through my wife's breast
his eyes bumble to the back
and he is growing at a rate
in which the measure of life is
blue jay jukebox cardinal
this early soundless prowl
nobody is out on the roads
the tips of the trees
clamor to the hold and whirl.
Tyler Flynn Dorholt is a writer and visual artist living in Central New York. His first full-length book, American Flowers, was published by Dock Street Press. He is the author of four chapbooks, and his work appears or is forthcoming in Washington Square Review, BOMB, Denver Quarterly, Posit, and others. He co-edits and publishes the print journal and press Tammy.