On Independence Day, Oklahoma
Secedes from the Union

Sadness. Deep, awful, empty, dark sadness that feels
a lot like a sickness in the bones. Sports, man.
          —Dan Le Batard

       Durantula in the Hamptons sexting The Logo.
       Not even Will Smith could save them, and now they’re burning
       Jerseys again—different people doing the burning to different jerseys
       Which turn into different ash—but still, it all comes back
       To the same thing: people doing what people do.
       Let’s party like it’s 2010. LeBron drilling spikes into
       his wrists, James Harden building model rockets
       In an empty garage next to his other seven empty garages.
       A city is still stuck with what it never had: heavier fingers,
       Champagne goggles, a reason to watch large men sit
       On top cars and wave. When did it become so wrong
       To want to be so super? I blame the Avengers,
       I blame Steven Adam’s mustache,
       Our parents for telling us to play nice with friends.
       I blame the first and last name of every teacher
       Who said I could be anything I wanted to be.

Oh Oh Oh Oh (And Then the Chorus)

This morning I woke up in a pomade greased back pack of Lucky Strikes rolled up the
sleeve of my white T kind of mood. I’m feeling all kinds of dangerous: watch me
jaywalk across rivers, wear bowling shoes without socks. Hell, I’m leaving the
coffee maker on. All. Fucking. Day. Watch me sleep on the wrong side of the bed,
laugh when you accidentally climb on top of me and then hum when you decide to
stay there, burrowing into my back as I grow so damn old staring out the window
watching the trees just hang out, swaying there, just as they’ve always done.

C.J. Miles lives in Iowa with his wife. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Forage, Eunoia Review, Clear Poetry, and Algebra of Owls, among others.
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