vincent antonio rendoni / poem

NOT YET A MAN, NOT YET A SKELETON

From my yard, I point at a stranger & say not yet a man, not yet a skeleton.

My friend gives me a modest laugh. He better. He’s drinking my stash.

Folks tell me I'm dark. I tell them a little gallows humor is good for the blood.

Good to wake up in the morning & think about the bills.

It's August now.

Ash on the windows. The never-ending daylight.

The awful, awful tomatoes you grow, but can't give away.

The worst of all the months. It can make anyone morbid.

After the buzz hits, my friend says, hey, remember bugs?

Yes, I tell him, they were delicious & I’m sorry I didn't leave him any.

He laughs & I laugh & the smoke moves over the mountains.

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Vincent Antonio Rendoni is the author of A Grito Contest in the Afterlife, winner of the 2022 Catamaran Poetry Prize for West Coast Poets selected by Dorianne Laux. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, AGNI, The Pleiades, Ninth Letter, Alaska Quarterly Review, Aquifer: The Florida Review, and december. He lives in White Center, WA.