Volume I, Issue IV | Many Nice Donkeys

I had been told
to drown as fish is to be full-up
with oxygen, to become
buoyant with oxygen, to bloat
and expand like overstretched balloon,
like blobfish
so unjustly named.

Electrogenic 

In an old knapsack I found
the first polaroid—you, shirtless with poetry scrawled
across your rib cage; me, smiling
with jasmine and daisies in my hair.
This is when we climbed trees and rode bicycles
and you juggled in the park.

Last Poem for James


The cemetery is overwhelmed
by crickets, thousands of them clutched
to tombstones
with names not our ancestors.
We tiptoe as we pass, sure their mouths will maw open
and consume us whole, swarm of wings
and teeth and vulnerable flesh.

Kai Pretto

Selected work