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1.
My clone was that adolescent friend
who would come over after school
every day but became uber-popular
in high school and then experimented
with drugs and later went off the grid
but now is back in town trying to get
their shit together and we have coffee
and catch up one afternoon before
night classes at the community college.
2.
I have grown resentful of my clone
for writing the groundbreaking novel
that I lack the audacity and discipline
to author myself, but then not caring
enough to attempt to get it published.
3.
My clone was in an indie band.
Mildly successful with a cult following
in the post-Napster, pre-iPod era.
Even toured several Midwestern cities
and paid off student loans with the proceeds.
Later, in downtown Des Moines, my clone
quit abruptly over creative differences
while claiming they penned all the band’s
cliched songs. It may have been the truth,
but it was bad form. Afterward, neither
my clone nor the talentless remainder
of the group found anything near their
original success. Post bygones, they do
get together, occasionally, for random
one-offs at dive bars – but only after
a debt collector or ex-wife has called
one of them demanding payments.
4.
My clone’s inner circle is an exclusive
nightclub. It’s not that no one can get inside—
it’s just that you need to be on the list.
5.
My clone did a ton of self-work to foster
personal growth while embarking on
many journeys, literal and metaphorical,
to arrive here. My clone squandered its
stamina while going the distance and has
been heaving for breath ever since
but remains focused on the finish line.
After their glow-up, my clone endured
eye rolls and sideways glances from haters.
It’s hard work being so well-adjusted,
but if my clone did it, then you can, too.
6.
My clone represents an advanced form
of sentient technology from a dystopian
future, and they will singe your thoughts
if you try to read their mind. Be careful.
7.
My clone doesn’t care much about
what you want. My clone doesn’t care
much about what I want, either.
8.
My clone has a love child that I kindly
clothe, feed, and watch over whenever
my clone feels a bit too downhearted
or distracted to care. My clone’s bastard
is hardheaded like me, so I give them
heavy-handed life advice while playing
catch in the backyard, hugging them
after they misjudge the trajectory
of my cut fastball, touching their bruises
gently and chanting it's going to be it’s going to be
okay as they cry through their pain
as they cry through their pain.
Adrian Potter
Adrian S. Potter, winner of the 2022 Lumiere Review Prose Award, writes in Minnesota when he’s not busy silently judging your beer selection and record collection. Potter is the author of three collections of poetry/prose/hybrid work, including the recent And the Monster Swallows You Whole (Stillhouse Books) and Field Guide to the Human Condition (CW Books).
There is only this you need to believe. We are smaller
and greater than our bodies. We are not above them.
They cover us and we in turn surround them.
Sometimes when we shrink inside, unable to make our
appendages work, we are children wearing our father’s shirts.
We're not born knowing how to re-inflate once our selves
have been diminished. To shrink inside for good, to lose
completely the ability to engage, is to fall from the mercy
of our own grace. When body and brain consider the spirit
at fault, trust is a natural concern. Beyond even big
mistakes, it’s more serious not to be there at all. Moving
forward, possibly compensating for lack of resolve, what are
our options, within the rules, for digging in, not allowing
our basic selves to be pulled along like empty sleeves?
We're not born knowing. We learn if it’s clear what to do.
Scott Davidson
Scott Davidson grew up in Montana, worked for the Montana Arts Council as a Poet in the Schools and – after most of two decades in Seattle – lives with his wife in Missoula. He’s been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in poetry and the GE Young Writers Award for literary essay. His poems have appeared in Southwest Review, Hotel Amerika, Poets, Painters, Composers, Terrain. org, Bright Bones: Contemporary Montana Writing, and the Permanent Press anthology Crossing the River: Poets of the Western United States.
My mom calls me and says she forgot how to use the remote and is beyond frustrated because
she can’t watch her favorite weekly show. This call seems unusual but at the same time isn’t
out of the realm of possibilities. We struggle through the process and end in victory. I try calling
my mom the next week and she answers. She says she tried to call me earlier but couldn’t
remember how. I know she’s getting older but this doesn’t seem right. At 64 has dementia
already set in? I go to visit her, and she seems pleasant, but when I ask her my birthday, she
says she can’t remember. Something is wrong.
I take her to the doctor. He asks if there’s been carbon monoxide poisoning. Not to our
knowledge, and then he says a prayer for her and tells her to go to the hospital and get a CAT
scan. We go, and immediately they think she had a stroke. They do some tests and say we
have good and bad news. The good news is she didn’t have a stroke, the bad news is we
found a brain tumor. Not only is this a brain tumor, it’s cancerous, glioblastoma. A particularly
aggressive cancer. The doctor says she could live maybe a year if we do a craniotomy right
now.
After the surgery things appear better, until they don’t. Within 3 months she’s on home hospice.
She’s forgotten who I am, who she is and withered into this person I don’t recognize. I’m sitting
at her bedside eating a taco and take a picture of a hummingbird that was drinking from her
bird feeder. A few moments later, mom takes her last breath. I say to her boyfriend, I think she’s
dead. The nurse comes in and says, "Look at her face, it looks like she’s smiling."
Travis Park
Travis Park is an emerging poet from a disadvantaged background. Their poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Their work was recently included in the Indiana Art Commissions InVerse Archive. You can see more of their poems on Instagram @travisparkpoetry.
