WEIGHTS AND MEASURES OF NAMES
A body found stuck to Hello
My Name Is sticker. Fag. Gay. Queer.
Hours rearranging words tacked
to the wall, speared like shish-kebabs.
Words locked in a wooden chest
or chest pains.
This blanket is homesick. A vacuum
caught the empty afternoon.
Shirt. Skirt. You decide
what you heard. What you hold.
Have you always been a Boy? Sometimes I am
not sure. Only by accident.
Nothing but tax & death is certain in life.
My grandmother died on tax day –
Ambiguous on the word calendar; maybe
I’ll understand when I’m older –
I filed my taxes two months prior; the return
was dismal. That much I know for sure.
Jake Matkov received a scholarship to the first grade. He was cast in Annie Get Your Gun as the Gun and has had nightmares ever since. He is an MFA candidate in poetry at LIU Brooklyn, where he holds a teaching fellowship. His work has appeared in those that this, Downtown Brooklyn, and Liquid, and he was featured emerging poet in the Newfangled Reading Series at Bureau for General Services – Queer Division. You can find him in Brooklyn or on Twitter @ooohjakie. He says hi.
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Cover photo: Quinn Dombrowski (https://www.flickr.com/photos/quinnanya)