Mr. Puican Regrets He Is Unable to Attend the Banquet in His Honor

Once, a boy looked for you to imagine him.

You rarely sang. I lay, half listening, thinking: one less day in Eden.

Commuters like cutout giraffes on billboards try to understand what they see. 

A cup sets the rules for its observation. Still we call it a cup.

The bars close. We step outside to awaken God's mercy.

Sometimes the sadness of the cook returns without explanation.

Sometimes a bomb drops, but only sometimes.

I’m stuck between the last lullaby you sang and the next one.

MIKE PUICAN

Mike Puican’s book of poetry Central Air (Northwestern Press) debuted in 2020. He’s had poems in Poetry, Michigan Quarterly Review, and New England Review, among other publications. He won the 2004 Tia Chucha Press Chapbook Contest for 30 Seconds. He teaches poetry to incarcerated men and women at the Federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago.