By Ezra Blaize

I know you would raise a son if you
could not raise the Sun, if you could

not wave a golden flag, or a white flag, even.
We would creep across the kitchen floor, and lap

milk from bowls, because we knew how soft they love,
and how lovely it would be to wrap up a California night in

our tails, carrying it, bobbing like a balloon above our glowing faces,
leave it on your mother’s mailbox–so she could know something else–

our yearbook is a collection of photos befriending car accidents in the Sunday
paper- awards for good deeds and well wishing academics- wedding

announcements, for better or worse- police reports, and
reminders that your old friends have drug habits- and

there is you–posed, unnatural, like you knew the
coroner’s white gloves before they ever

touched your face, your wounds, your waist–
before they moved you in place- like

posing for a yearbook photo.

***

Ezra Blaize is a recent Flagler graduate who will be pursuing a Ph.D. at University of Wisconsin’s Curriculum and Instruction department. He writes two to four pieces a week, and hopes to engage as many publishing opportunities as possible sometime in the future, post-grad school.