Yesterday’s Poem

Characters Castaway

Moonpie is the god-talker and king of the cantina,

he trades us shrink-wrapped, air-tight

sweeties for the plantains, boars fat hung

around rib and hind, and a million little fish.

Mamasan is the nurse made of nightingale,

toothache, and codeine.

Me, I’m the man in the middle of them—

the cold current, featherless buzzards

scrounging and the thieves.

 -Jason Braun