Jareth Armstrong
It sits in a funny way
Like the way my room does
When, for some reason, the fans are still
And all I want is a shower
But all I need is to hang my washing out
Death reaps like a big Texan oil baron
In his white suit and his Panama hat
Digging at your chips across the table
‘Looney’, ‘Oddball’, whispered in riposte.
To the chortle gamblers hear games away
Death hurts like a hotdog
With that cheap, impossibly yellow sauce
That applies itself like ointment
On that one ulcer between your molars
like the last person to leave a party
Death can help, sometimes
Like when I was fifteen, and on the edge of her bed
I told my crush how my dad went
In return, she gave me my first kiss
As a strange quid pro quo
Mostly though, death lingers
The way that sunlight does, for those few minutes
When it’s headed east again,
And yet, in all that gold hue
You’d swear there wasn’t a shadow on Earth
Author: Jareth is a local charm, avid enjoyer of many things, and a new papá. Feel free to find him at @legospidermanofficial on insta.
Artist: Zoe Hawker is a multi-disciplinary student artist working with sculpture, installation, and painting. Her self-reflexive practice aims to decode the absurdities of our current culture.
Editors: Brock Scholte and Fernanda Bustos Venegas