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published October 2009

Jon Sands is a recipient of the 2009 New York City-LouderARTS fellowship grant. His work has appeared in DecomP, Spindle Magazine, The November 3rd Club, and others. He is the Director of Poetry and Arts Education Programming at the Positive Health Project, a needle exchange center located in Midtown Manhattan, and has represented New York City multiple times at the National Poetry Slam, subsequently becoming an NPS finalist. Jon lives in New York City, where he cooks better tuna salad than anyone you know.

Glory

by

I tell Lee and Warner I saw it on tele­vi­sion. Just tele­vi­sion.
That when leaves on sub­ur­ban shrub­bery look exactly like these leaves,
that is when Jackemiah rises from the Earth’s stom­ach
like an evil olive pit sucked clean by the devil. Their faces rum­ple
into ner­vous raisins as I explain how sure I am, how tele­vi­sion told me
the globe would dis­solve into its own pud­dle and each tiny sec­tion of our bod­ies
(a fin­ger here, then an eye­brow) would drift away. It said the planet’s only
open­ing for sur­vival would rest on three 10 year olds— with bicy­cles,
and sweat­pants, in a close prox­im­ity to trees, for they will hold the final bat­tle.
Our legs become tiny pis­tons as we accel­er­ate toward the for­est,
urgency our new lan­guage. Jackemiah, with a body made of night­mares
will be ready. Eyes must be closed tight, fists tighter. Lee is laugh­ing
as if he does not believe. Warner is sob­bing because he does. My face
is com­pletely ice cube. Then we are all whirling our arms like bullets.