Yash Seyedbagheri

Better Angels

better angels went out to lunch
the captain, their captain long dead
they grabbed a few beers
the Sedition IPA
ABV too high to measure
and they shoved and laughed
and whistled Dixie without malice of course
just our heritage, the angels proclaimed
dragging a few tight ropes with them
a tree or two ready for live pinatas
they tested it themselves
and fell with ease

I/Him

The moon smiles in white nightgown
through a pink and purple sea
a man in a beret tells me to wake up
I woke up yesterday, he growls
for the revolution is near,
the Latinos are constrained by the masculine O
Dr. Seuss is interning our children, US Grant’s beard is too patriarchal
it’s our duty to stage insurrection in a Starbucks, after a twelve-dollar venti
he growls, he/him in unison
while I look to the sky,

the wind offers a dance
and I open my arms
to the branches, slender arms leading
across a dance floor of playful shadows
I’m awakening
smiling
while the moon watches
I brush the weariness away
a man’s words dispersed with the breeze
I’m awake
I/me
but I’m not woke

Yash Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA program in fiction. His stories, “Soon,” “How To Be A Good Episcopalian,” and “Tales From A Communion Line,” were nominated for Pushcarts. Mir-Yashar’s work has been published or is forthcoming in SmokeLong Quarterly, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, and Ariel Chart, among others.

Back