Before the K Age

K.G. Newman

 

Father pioneered analytics in Netscape forums
and this was debate time.
Mother drank. I Nintendo’d intently
with a game full of little hopes.
Mornings came. My eyes grew heavy
customizing the barrel speeds
of synthetic kings of swing.

There was a red dress
in the extra bedroom
spinning from the fan,
but who put it there?
Mother’s tumblers made water rings.
They were semi-opaque,
like the state of my brain just then.

The homers I hit sounded like guns.
“Data over beliefs,” he always repeated.
In my game full of little hopes,
conflict raged: Needles and lies
giving rise to an ugly kind of strikeout age,
with my humidor heart splintering at its stump.


Want to read more like this? Subscribe to the magazine to get three print issues per year full of exclusive stories and poetry.

You can find K.G. on Twitter and read more at kgnewman.com.

PoetryJeremy Bibaud