Three Poems
Nathaniel Duggan
Atomic Bomb Poem
Baby come on over I have
an unlimited capacity for failure
I have a cyborg heart constructed
from Honda Civic cupholders I have
a 40oz of malt liquor this night can’t
end I haven’t used my Sam’s Club
Membership yet it gets too dark too quick
this close to the sky so close and still
you can’t touch it just like the space
they say exists between every atom
and if we are all built from atoms
then baby come on over I have
never once been touched
Giant Squid Poem
Year of excellent back-to-school specials,
of giant squids smashing oil tankers.
No one remembers their phone number.
The coasts are stained with ink
and high school dropouts.
When the giant squid plummets ashore,
it is transparent as an uncle’s drug habit,
its eyes gashes. How terrifying,
everyone concedes, gathering their towels,
going back to work. I linger past nightfall
in the fantasy where the squid
is my CGI companion. It only rots
a little, and I measure the ocean
by how deep the moon sinks.
Directions to Vacationland
Kill me in a National Park
because my heart is a billion pounds
of unpaid parking tickets,
and sometimes I fall in love
with my best friends’ little sisters.
But forget the gerrymandered prom.
Regret nothing. Regret is nothing
but a short scuttle, there and back,
through the business districts
of Japanese armpit pornography.
My clone films a blockbuster there
in which he assassinates me,
from behind, with a coconut.
That’s heaven alright. What else
can I say looking like next week’s
supervillain, spliced as I am now
into so many lost hangovers.
Nathaniel Duggan lives in Maine. His Twitter can be found @asdkfjasdlfjd