Old man relative say
By Aaron El Sabrout
he plans to drain the swamp
he’s never seen a swamp
he didn’t hate
vines dripping from the branches
to drink, mangrove marmoratus
shimmer transparent,
sentient ripples below the
surface of the water,
roots like fingers clawed into
the sand, holding it in place.
Old man relative he
grew up on plastic tray nuclear
dinner, he shaved baby carrot,
he white flake mashed potato
brown green peas never seen
bisilla spiraling
from soil,
wrapping hairs extending
to anchor pea leaves, profusion
of flowers, white-tongued
& peach & violet, scores
of butterflies ain’t come to visit
& no fattening amethyst
or peridot pod splits for
this dinner.
Old man relative see
“environmental catastrophe,”
think I’m not gonna
live that long anyway.
Old man drive noxious dinosaur
old man don’t wear mask at grocery store.
He wanders
perforated metal aisles
chilly, confused by carob
& quinoa. Old man
sees breasts then eyes.
Young woman
wrinkles nose & sneers, selects
gluten-free lab-grown sausage, neither
legume, nor fungus, nor beef. Lululemon
yoga leggings same un-fiber as
old man Walmart pants, pterodactyl
twisted in the threads.
Old man panics at
checkout clerk
short hair
short stature
short sleeves
baring silvery hair forearm
name tag: Seagull. Old
man over clocked, can’t clock
checkout boy or checkout girl,
cigar smoke turns strip lights to
old man flashback
sweat reek disco
humid air & fish smell.
Thick wristed throat bob
girl pours liquor & spills
long legs from lank
fish-scale shimmer dress.
Young man bombed palm
thatch village very next day
chicken squawks & human screams
bent her over backroom
table last night but
only the burnt body
spilled her tea.
Old man hyperventilate
fluorescent light too bright
napalm smell burns his
throat, helicopter blades
pound air from his lungs.
Old man collapses at grocery
store, wakes
on the ground. Silver haired
checkout sylph holds his hand,
leather-wrinkled skin &
thick knuckles,
grip simultaneously firm & weak
like pea tendrils
clinging
to tree trunk. Can’t wait
any longer, old man
begins to cry.
Checkout clerk watches EMTs
load old man into ambulance.
Sky burns acrid with smoke,
black clouds condensing behind
silhouetted mountains, vermillion
summer glow suffuses Seagull.
They pull their mask aside,
reach into their pocket, grasp
metal pen pipe, red
digital eye
on the barrel glows & they
press it to their lips
& pull.
Aaron El Sabrout (he/him) is a transgender Egyptian writer, artist, and activist currently living on unceded Stz’uminus territory (‘B.C, Canada’). At the beginning of the pandemic, he was living in Ooga Po’oge, on Tewa territory. He is a 2020 Obsidian Foundation fellow. His work has been published in Mud Season Review, Split Lip Magazine, and the Texas Poetry Review, among others. His work has also been featured in The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 3: Halal if You Hear Me, and We Want It All: A Radical Anthology of Trans Poetics.