Rodrigo Toscano
The Mounds
Tips of spears, pottery shards, how bones lay
Shell’s beach of origin, which way stones point
Mounds not clear to the eyes at first, rising
Kinda mushy (by now) generations
Of grass, of ceaseless rain, blurring the lines
Of forethought, persistence, endurance, wit
Rendering the scene (truth be told) vacant
To eyes and ears tethered to blinking screens
Superstructures driving your sex by bits
You think it was different back the in the day?
Smokey campfires, come gather round, listen
Hear those that came before, left all this junk
As we fast ditch our junk, dreaming deep space
Always deep space is sex as skulls retrieved
Destinations of Things
Consumables, ponder them briefly, breathe
Circuit board mound, forty meters in height
Jakarta slum, pickers climb high to pluck
Teeny, tiny chips, there, there’s a one, breathe
Exhale, what’s stirring behind the curtain?
What’s rattling there? Bring on the chronicler!
Eighty ten kilo buckets in a row
The clunking’s increasing, now fading – gone
Shsh…is that a one? It’s back! Supply line
Tankards! tankards! bring on the sorcerer!
Oh you mother plucker son of a bit!
Breathe, it’s calling out, tankards, supply lines
Bring on the rhapsodist! Buckets, exhale
This micro play of words as chips in play
Rodrigo Toscano’s newest book of poetry is In Range. Previous books include, Explosion Rocks Springfield, Deck of Deeds, Collapsible Poetics Theater (a National Poetry Series selection), To Leveling Swerve, Platform, Partisans, and The Disparities. His poetry has appeared in over 15 anthologies, including Diasporic Avant Gardes and Best American Poetry. He works for the Labor Institute in conjunction with the National Institute for Environmental Health Science. He is currently working on research and training projects dealing with Covid-19. Rodrigo lives in New Orleans.