2 Poems by Kayleb Rae Candrilli

Kayleb Rae Candrilli is the recipient of a Whiting Award and of a fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts. They are the author of Water I Won't Touch (Copper Canyon, 2021), All the Gay Saints (Saturnalia 2020), and What Runs Over (YesYes Books, 2017).
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What Runs Over won the 2016 Pamet River Prize and was a 2017 Lambda Literary finalist for Transgender Poetry and a finalist for the 2018 American Book Fest's best book award in LGBTQ nonfiction. All the Gay Saints was the winner of the 2018 Saturnalia Book Prize, selected by Natalie Diaz. They are published or forthcoming in POETRY, The American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Academy of American Poets, TriQuarterly, Puerto del Sol, Bettering American Poetry, The Boston Review, and others.

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*"POEM IN WHICH I CHALLENGE..." appears in Kayleb's 2021 collection Water I Won't Touch.


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POEM IN WHICH I CHALLENGE MY FATHER
TO AN ARM-WRESTLING COMPETITION
AND FINALLY WIN
 

//
 
More than a decade has passed since I saw my father,
in the parking lot of a Wilkes-Barre strip mall. More than
 
a decade since he took my sibling to the Hawaiian Islands
and dosed them with oxy, meth, and heroin. In that order. 
 
None of this should have surprised me. But, of course, it did.
When my sibling finally came home, they brought home blown
 
veins, a back full of scars, and a pillowcase filled with bruises.
My father once forced a crack pipe into my hands, right after
 
I was discharged from the hospital, and right after
my 18th birthday. I’m sure there’s something beautiful
 
to say, somewhere, tucked between the facts
of our lives and my old Pokémon collection.
 
My sibling is sober and vibrant and alive.
My sibling is way more fun than I’ve ever been.
 
Nothing should surprise me,
but it does, and that’s enough.
 
//
 
I have so few fond memories of my father,
but what I have, I hold.
 
He read me the entire Kamandi Comic series.
and I studied that Last Boy on Earth.
 
I learned how to survive an apocalypse
and how to be a boy.
 
It’s 2020 now, and both are proving useful.
When I was 7 years old,
 
my father and I play fought with inflatable
circus swords in the sunroom.
 
When it came down, I expected a knighting,
but instead, the plastic seam
 
sliced my cornea. I suppose most children
taste this same bittersweet
 
syrup when they think about their fathers:
sugar dressing up a lemon,
 
an eye patch over a rivulet, a pretend pirate
only until the wound heals. 

//
 
When the stock market crashes, I am happy
to have nothing but Hot Fries and Orzo invested,
in the pantry. Sometimes it is easy to have so little,
 
or at least uncomplicated. My mother loved Hip-Hop
and my father beat her for it. If she and I drove around
alone, she’d turn up the radio and explain: It's like
 
the more money we come across the more problems we see.
My mother had our property logged of all its timber,
so I could move away and learn to write poetry.
 
My father spent all that maple money on marriage
counseling, but my mother wasn’t in attendance.
Sometimes I want to go back, just for a meal
 
of Steak-umms and frozen orange juice. But who
has the time to rewind. My parents are finally
divorced. I am writing poems. Those downed
 
trees I used to climb are sawdust.
 
//




​A POEM ABOUT ONLY BASEBALL
 
for Bubba
 
 
Bubba, we were out there
on the diamond together,
 
and you were always shining
the brightest. I remember
 
you catching a pop fly just
to roll your body right
 
into a front flip. For you
it was about being the best,
 
and looking good while
you did it. God, we were
 
just children and the world
was ours and we couldn’t
 
be hurt even when we were
hurt or hurting. Every small
 
town has a story about a
talented and beautiful boy
 
who is smoldering. I was
the only girl on the little
 
league team, and though
I am no longer a girl,
 
you were always so fiercely
soft with me. When I lost
 
my teeth at second base,
you searched the rocky
 
infield dirt and told me
not to worry about the money
 
it would cost to put me
back together. I think
 
about your daughters often,
and I want to pass down some
 
of the gentleness you gave me.
I keep it all in my wallet, still,
 
tucked between receipts and
the coordinates of our town--
 
our town that takes all the good
ones, and never looks back.