meatsmoke & sweat
damngood i am today
eat with hands
i am not dead but i’ll believe
anything offered 
in hand with a free
pulled pork sandwich 

work tomorrow yes but work
i can like: today’s little communion
will stick in my hackles through it
yes broke but getting
closer, broke with brown eggs
in the fridge, there’s even meat
i’ll freeze for later

there is was a house
peppered black mold tinkling 
in my throat the kitchen light flinched
out: at my mother’s voice
even her eyelashes shook
which i pluck from my reflection
now in the bathroom mirror.

our face has more gaps than
i thought i didn’t place these 
freckles myself one 
natal May afternoon.
They must be surfacing 
in my sleep, clinging to
what doesn’t come off in the shower,
field mix and chalk I thought was
my skin sloughs off in sheets
milling by the shower drain’s lip.

When you live this close
to a river that flows north 
when it rains thick like
this puddles clot underground.
Ernie calls em frog stranglers
Devin says up chuck muds 
& to be careful. I throw on the lights.
Spikes down, rig in float,
this machine is called lollythrottle
I turn over the six fields looking 
for less than an inch of water.

LIAM WHOLIHAN's other poems appear in The Dewdrop, Kelp, Red Noise Collective, Quail Bell Magazine, and others. He uses his MFA in poetry to maintain baseball fields, drive a Zamboni, and teach creative writing at Point Park University.