in parentheses

Kenton K. Yee recently placed poetry in Constellations, Plume Poetry, The Threepenny Review, Sugar House Review, Rattle, Stanford’s Mantis, The Indianapolis Review, Delta Poetry Review, Berkeley Poetry Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, and Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts, among others. Kenton writes from northern California and consults in artificial intelligence.

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SEA SPIDERS

Think about it. Desire isn’t the key.
Technique is. You think therefore
you camouflage. You’re hungry therefore
you’re patient. The way your blue rings
throb, like an adolescent’s heart,
stronger and faster in the presence
of a big crab. This isn’t due to passion.
A thinker needs surprise like a poet
needs scenery. I’m thrilled
to see you wrapping one up again.
But no one wants to see
how you paralyze, puncture,
and suck a carapace clean.
Humans like crab too.

YOUNG BOMBARDIERS

Davy scooped the tissue
from the bowl and inserted it
between my fingers,
like my father once handed
me a match to light
our New Year’s firecrackers.
I positioned the wad
over the traffic below.

A match! To light firecrackers!
What a thing for a father
to give his son?
We watched in awe / laughing

as an ant far below stopped,
veered in an almost arc,
waved his antennae
and a squadron of its buddies
gathered around. How
we ducked and worried
about being drafted.

THE ESCAPED BALLOON

The best thing is no fingers
touching my skin. Longing?
O, I long alright—desire’s
all I feel. I feel the warmth
of the big balloon you call the sun,
and I reflect him better than Earth does—
for I am a moon, no less
than the bigger moons. Do you dare
to drift alone, at the mercy
of shifting winds as I do?
I shiver only because I’m shrinking.
I’m shrinking only because
the sun seems to be leaving me
in the dusk.

ODE TO DYING ALONE

The hue as you don’t wake
to 1 mind, 2 shades
of blue, emit 3 puffs

of gas. 5 flies constellate
like 7 cats licking your belly.

Elevator doors open on 13.
17 floors, 19 years, and 23 octopuses
pass you by like cattle on highway 37.
Your hope as sure as 41 clouds
with 51 percent chance of showers
at 57 degrees latitude.

Count 61 more, Mister Grim says,
and come with me.
At this point, you have zero choice.

Souls don’t collide.
They black bolt from the absence of light.

Now, memories sparse at 89 and 97,
alone as the largest known prime,
seeing the face of your ghostly bride,
who can you call but 911?

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