The Best American Poetry 2013 by David Lehman Page A

dimension
    before erupting in a field of Dakota corn. On the F train
    to Manhattan yesterday, I sat across
    from a family threesome Guatemalan by the look of them—
    delicate and archaic and Mayan—
    and obviously undocumented to the bone.
    They didn’t seem anxious. The mother was
    laughing and squabbling with the daughter
    over a knockoff smart phone on which they were playing a
    video game together. The boy, maybe three,
    disdained their ruckus. I recognized the scowl on his face,
    the retrospective, maskless rage of inception.
    He looked just like my son when my son came out of his mother
    after thirty hours of labor—the head squashed,
    the lips swollen, the skin empurpled and hideous
    with blood and afterbirth. Out of the inflamed tunnel
    and into the cold room of harsh sounds.
    He looked right at me with his bleared eyes.
    He had a voice like Richard Burton’s.
    He had an impressive command of the major English texts.
    I will do such things, what they are yet I know not,
    but they shall be the terrors of the earth, he said.
    The child, he said, is father of the man.
    from FIELD

PETER JAY SHIPPY
Western Civilization

    Lucas took one of those trips
    That Americans of a certain rage
    Must take—to find themselves. In Utah
    Lucas found himself marooned
    In the wilderness, 50 miles
    From society, covered in flop sweat
    And Cheetos dust, perched on the roof
    Of his teenaged Pinto as it neighed
    A swan song. His cowed cell phone crowed:
    Out of range, where seldom is heard
    A word. Should he hike back to Moab?
    Should he wait for his satellite
    To synch or should he scream like Job
    And curse the day he was born?
    To keep awake he stared at the sun
    And sneezed. After a week, he came to
    Believe that snakelets were zagzigging
    From his brain to his heart so that
    He felt what he thought. That was enough
    To move Lucas from hood to the earth.
    He mimed building a fire and cooking
    A can of beans. At dusk, Li Po
    Came down from the foothills, looking
    For Keith Moon. Lucas offered regrets
    And faux joe. They discussed The Who.
    â€œâ€Šâ€˜Substitute’ is their best song,” Lucas said.
    The poet disagreed: “ ‘Magic Bus’—
    The version on Live at Leeds .”
    From the arroyo Steve-the-saguaro
    Plucked his mesquite ukulele
    As he sang, “Thank My Lucky Stars
    I’m a Black Hole.” Lucas joined on
    The chorus and Li Po shadow waltzed.
    Later, over spirits, Li Po cupped
    His ear and whispered, “Do you hear
    The hoo-hah of hoof beats? The great herd
    Is here to lead Old Paint to that
    Better place ‘where the graceful whooper
    Goes gliding along like a handmaid
    In a blissful dream.’ Lo siento. ”
    Then Lucas submitted to gravity.
    When the highway patrol found him
    He looked like a dried peach. They emptied
    Their canteens over his face until
    His skin sprung back, like a Colt pistol,
    To the lifelike. On the bus ride home
    Lucas slapped himself silly, chanting:
    I want it, I want it, I want it . . .
    from The Common

MITCH SISSKIND
Joe Adamczyk

    He was Joe Adamczyk and
    Eve Grabuskawa was her name.
    They owned a tavern called
    Adamczyk & Eve’s and they
    Called their sex life Grandma Fogarty.
    Nights as closing time approached
    Joe would say, “Eve, do you think
    Grandma Fogarty could drop by?”
    And Eve would often answer,
    â€œI would not be a bit surprised.”
    Years passed in just this way.
    Blatz, Schlitz, Pabst Blue Ribbon,
    Heileman’s Old Style Lager,
    Old Milwaukee—ten thousand
    Beer glasses filled and emptied.
    When pizza pies, as they were then known,
    Achieved popularity Joe and Eve offered
    The pies to customers and called them
    Polish pizzas for a laugh. Beer sales
    Skyrocketed as pizza pies appeared.
    Also available were White Owl cigars,
    And Cubs’ home runs were called
    White Owl Wallops by Jack Brickhouse
    On the TV set above the bar.
    But the Cubs lost during the 1950s.
    In those