Anything that washes up
on a manmade lake
is a threat or an ending
& if you’re grotesque enough
to collect such things
then you should run for office.
I put my hand in the distance,
in the flat moon of our lives
& I felt only Ohio’s best rage.
All six of us got naked
to run into the water
to wash off the intention
of more fire, more fire,
the control of more fire
& the loss, glorious loss
of a fire on its own.
We all met our own echo.
Even our echoes
felt that son-of-a-bitch
that cut healthcare,
that wanted to cut
healthcare even more,
that had invited one of us
to become a widower
before they ever could pay
a mortgage should see
us glisten, should hear us
invent the new profanity
just for him. We all knew
we didn’t need clothes
to burn his old house down,
so we used our shirts as towels
& we folded our pants
on the sand. We were bodies,
beautiful and open. We
shook with adrenaline.
is the author of six poetry collections, most recently Many Full Hands Applauding Inelegantly (8th House Publishing, 2016). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous magazines and journals, including Diode, Meridian, New Letters, Diagram, and Colorado Review. He is the Managing Editor of the Best of the Net Anthology and Ovenbird Poetry. Demaree lives in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.