Quiet
Our centerpiece, an empty vase, rattles
at dinner. Our parents measure their love
in decibels, and our respect is a reflex
recorded with a rubber mallet and a threat.
When they love us at dinner, we respect
with stillness. Don’t chew, don’t shift.
My young brother (stretched thinner and
taller than me) is an endless vessel of love.
His long, bony hands are unpredictable
spiders – little Anansis. They are the
only thing translating his droopy, lax face
with their morse code drumming.
His ring finger lingers discretely on the
steak knife
to feel love reverberate in its blade. He
presses into it. He stains the oak table.
Then I’m silent in the basement. I rewind
spools of thread and listen to the three
laugh together as they part: Mom
like a butterfly, Dad like a mall Santa,
the cop like a rusty pickup truck.
Across the room, my brother reflects
behind his big eyes on his bandage,
on his lesson in the language of blood.
My brain folds itself into an origami mouse.
dragon.
mouse.
dragon.
mouse.
Until the creases wear so much they tear apart.
The Brown Marmorated Stink Bug is an Invasive Species Where I Live
How kind
of stink bugs
to self-mummify
like the monks on
Mt. Yudono before
I even see them. And
always in that one spot,
the trim of the glass door
which they apparently chose
as a morgue for our convenience.
Or are we thwarting their attempts
to establish a graveyard? Without me,
would they ziggurat their crisp little bodies
building a stairway against the glass toward the
Truman Show door for their protagonist to enter?
As I carry them outside,
knowing how easily and
totally they would crack,
it’s hard not to think
of a mortar and pestle.
Jamie Manias is a poetry MFA candidate and instructor at Bowling Green State University, where they serve as an assistant editor to Mid-American Review. Their work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rat’s Ass Review, Kingfisher, and Swamp Ape, among other publications. They can be found on Instagram at @jamiemanias.