Gum Cemetery

By Will Grofic


Gum Cemetery

Their ancestors chewed and chucked to the street,
our feet strengthened an underworld.
        Their god was human and everywhere,
glued under tables and chairs. The unemployed
are trees before the suck, this is the world’s sap,
the spruce’s saliva. They expand with air

but cannot fly. The sudden pop is potential,
resin when hunger sets in. I have gnawed bone,
        blackened eye sockets beyond burial.
Underneath the tongue, burial is in all walks of life,
sniveling to be reborn. This confection in resin

resembles plastered tiles and leaves, imprinted
in our walls. A frozen pudding, a saccharine fire
        thaws, the smack under a tongue switch.
Remember this is everything, don’t screw it up.
Spit it where a sole won’t step, where it can’t hold on.


Will Grofic is Managing Editor of Potomac Review and a recent graduate from the Bennington Writing Seminars where he received an MFA in Writing. His poems are forthcoming in No Tell Motel, Gargoyle, and Anti-. He also teaches at Montgomery College.

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