Unimpressed with Day Ten of the Lockdown by Ace Boggess

Three-hour movie—It: Chapter Two—
would’ve been scary in February.
It’s April, & the lethal clown looks friendly
compared to white-knuckled,
average minutes on the news. I like death
as a distraction from death, deaths,
nearness to those. What film spares the world
from choosing between Inferno & Purgatorio?
How about an adventure in which the hero
must hide in the jungle from pursuers with knives
in their teeth? 80s’ Rambo would be nice—
surprise savior, a rugged antibody.

Ace Boggess is author of six books of poetry, most recently Escape Envy (Brick Road, 2021). His poems have appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Harvard Review, Rattle, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes and tries to stay out of trouble.

Why Do You Miss the Breeze Blowing from an Oscillating Fan? by Ace Boggess

[question asked by Grace Welch]

I dreamt one night I escaped from prison:

the Harley dream, wind against blushing cheeks,

smell of perfume off fields of flowers.

I awoke broken, chained. Now,

released, it’s that wind I search for

as if brushing my face like a damp towel,

freedom the getting-away, getting-by.

Without this cushion, lungs can’t breathe.

I might as well be back in a cell,

dreaming a hole in the wall, a way out,

as the dream me dreams about cursing

the turning key that will lock him

in a sterile space: some hell, hospital,

home for strangers too long on the road.

Ace Boggess is author of the novel A Song Without a Melody (Hyperborea Publishing, 2016), and two books of poetry, most recently The Prisoners (Brick Road, 2014). Forthcoming is a third poetry collection, Ultra-Deep Field (Brick Road). His writing has appeared in Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, RATTLE, River Styx, and many other journals.