Skeets - Eyes bottle dark with a mouthful of flowers: poems

The National Poetry Series was established in 1978 to ensure the publication of five collections of poetry annually through five participating publishers. The Series is funded annually by Amazon Literary Partnership, the Gettinger Family Foundation, Bruce Gibney, HarperCollins Publishers, Stephen King, Lannan Foundation, Newmans Own Foundation, Anna and Olafur Olafsson, Penguin Random House, the Poetry Foundation, Elise and Steven Trulaske, and the National Poetry Series Board of Directors. 2018 COMPETITION WINNERS Valuing
by Christopher Kondrich of University Park, MD
Chosen by Jericho Brown for University of Georgia Press Nervous System
by Rosalie Moffett of Athens, GA
Chosen by Monica Youn for Ecco Fear of Description
by Daniel Poppick of New York, NY
Chosen by Brenda Shaughnessy for Penguin Books Its Not Magic
by Jon Sands of New York, NY
Chosen by Richard Blanco for Beacon Press Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers
by Jake Skeets of Vanderwagen, NM
Chosen by Kathy Fagan for Milkweed Editions EYES BOTTLE DARK with a
MOUTHFUL of FLOWERS EYES BOTTLE DARK with a
MOUTHFUL of FLOWERS poems by JAKE SKEETS MILKWEED EDITIONS 2019, Text by Matthew Jake Skeets All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher: Milkweed Editions, 1011 Washington Avenue South, Suite 300, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55415. (800) 520-6455 milkweed.org Published 2019 by Milkweed Editions Printed in Canada Cover design by Mary Austin Speaker Cover photograph by Richard Avedon, The Richard Avedon Foundation 19 20 21 22 23 5 4 3 2 1 First Edition Milkweed Editions, an independent nonprofit publisher, gratefully acknowledges sustaining support from the Ballard Spahr Foundation; the Jerome Foundation; the McKnight Foundation; the National Endowment for the Arts; the Target Foundation; and other generous contributions from foundations, corporations, and individuals. Also, this activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

For a full listing of Milkweed Editions supporters, please visit milkweed.org. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Skeets, Jake, author. Title: Eyes bottle dark with a mouthful of flowers : poems / Jake Skeets. Description: First edition. | Minneapolis, Minnesota : Milkweed Editions, 2019. : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Navajo Indians--Poetry. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Navajo Indians--Poetry.

Classification: LCC PS3619.K46 (ebook) | LCC PS3619.K46 A6 2019 (print) | DDC 811/.6dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019001875 Milkweed Editions is committed to ecological stewardship. We strive to align our book production practices with this principle, and to reduce the impact of our operations in the environment. We are a member of the Green Press Initiative, a nonprofit coalition of publishers, manufacturers, and authors working to protect the worlds endangered forests and conserve natural resources. Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers was printed on acid-free 100% postconsumer-waste paper by Friesens Corporation. For my family, the strongest people I knowCONTENTSKood Hzh Doolee From here, there will be beauty again EYES BOTTLE DARK with a MOUTHFUL of FLOWERS DrunktownIndian Eden. Open tooth.

Bone bruise. This town split in two. Clocks ring out as train horns, each hour hand drags into a screech iron, steel, iron. The minute hand runs its fingers through the outcrops. Drunktown. Town a gasp. Town a gasp.

In between the letters are boots crushing tumbleweeds, a tractor tire backing over a mans skull. Men around here only touch when they fuck in a backseat go for the foul with thirty seconds left hug their sons after high school graduation open a keg stab my uncle forty-seven times behind a liquor store A bar called Eddies sits at the end of the world. By the tracks, drunk men get some sleep. My fathers uncle tries to get some under a long-bed truck. The truck backs up to go home. I arrange my fathers boarding school soap bones on white space and call it a poem.

Like my father, I come upon death staggering into the house with beer on the breath. Mule deer splintered in barbed tendon. Gray highway veins narrowpush, pull under teal and red hills. A man is drunk-staggering into northbound lanes, dollar bills for his index and ring fingers. Sands glitter with broken bottlesgreens, deep blues, clears, and golds. This place is White Cone, Greasewood, Sanders, White Water, Bread Springs, Crystal, Chinle, Nazlini, Indian Wells, and all muddy roads lead from Gallup.

The sky places an arm on the near hills. On the shoulder, dark grayalmost bluebleeds into greens blue-greens turquoise into hazy blue pure blue no gray or gold or oil black seeped through. If I stare long enough, I see my uncle in a mirror. The bottle caps we use for eyes. An owl has a skeleton of three letters o twists into l the burrowing owl burrows under dead cactus feathers fall on horseweed and skull bone blown open Afterparty We tank down beer. Eyelids lower and lower.

He lets me feel beneath his basketball shorts, sorrel fields along his thigh. Burrows in our bellies heavy and heavy from rolling rock and blue ribbon. Aluminum ghost coaxes his kiss. Candle left lit. He mouths the neck and lip of another bottlerifle cold. My tongue coils on the trigger before its click.

Corn beetles scatter out no longer his bones. In the Fields dogs maul remains like white space does Truck Effigy purple paint fades into overcast sky broken cloudssanded down to metal teeth carburetor muscle beneath combustion clouds broken pockets of smoke blackening scalp he swallows transmission and gasket bonnet with full wings torn from his burning back an eye alters into alternator the other a hubcap he becomes man returned to smolder truck frame lodged into the graded roof of his palate locked with him at the wristshis palms grip sunburnt skin he carousels a young boyrocks propel into the air again again again againhe lets the steering wheel go he lets the boy gobody spun into the seat gravel-torn skinhis truck carousels hair threads into branchesover and over and over and over and his body not flown to the brushes his body sown into the seat and the truck and char and everything else Tcheeh boys swim in lake water coming thunder they hold the other try to hear a heartbeat splash apart hands petal on the shore a spine their bodies lap and tenor they press their lips together their torch skin a distant sunset distant headlight distant city distant brushfire they burrow roads for hot wheels discover entire towns in damp soil roll tiny cars back and forth to even roadways pack dirt with feet shine die-cast metals with their shirts goose bumps dot lower backs fingers wander beneath jeans damp air curves in around the navel they discover their names as bottle caps beneath them the letters teethed just boys still veined hands latched to their necks each eye a coal pearl for grandfathers returned to water mothers held in their hair cousins at teeth one carries his name like a cold sore on their knees on vinyl tile mistaken for water on the kitchen floor after painting an ode to sky bit down on scar tissue in inner cheek just another war wars in arm hair in the tomatoes instead of a burning their names become a cornfield fingers lupine beardtongue bee plant in harrow grasses pronghorn in wild rose truck radio more sego lily and pigweed spewing from open mouth boys watch ricegrass shimmer in smoke fires everywhere around them arms stretch in sap and bark hair now meadow limbs tangle into snakeweed burning burning burning burning they know becoming a man means knowing how to become charcoal staccato of ash holding a match to their skin trying not to light themselves on fire