Mike Puican

As If Talking

I am late May, burning through Manitoba.
A clump of crocuses breaks out of my face, 

a bonfire blazes in the cold fog, clearing
the hair in my throat. Distance is tied to

the past: the outline of your body is
more attractive due to where you came from, 

what you gave up to be here. This morning
my father appeared in the melting snow 

of a cornfield. A splash of blood from his
eye fell into mine. I see him now blooming 

from my face reflected in the spring. This
desire is like the burn of spring searing 

across Northern Canada, like the moment
before climax that says I am granting 

you your rights. The distance between here
and the future is within reach—touch me, 

we become the next century's street signs.
A red fox crosses the mud. A crack 

explodes off the ice. Something puts its hands
over my ears and says “Can you hear me now?” 




  

Shoes

A little girl takes her new red purse to bed.

In the middle of the night she calls out for her shoes.

The children are playing tag in the snow.

Where are their shoes?

Each detail of the First Lady’s outfit

has been attended to. Where are her shoes?

Then one day you wake up:

a rain of melted glass and shoes.

The observables: subjects segmented

by how much they spend on their shoes.

A man is blindfolded against a wall.

Beside him his socks are tucked neatly into his shoes.

Before entering the plane

you must remove your shoes.

The corpse seems to have lost one of them.

Mike Puican was a member of the 1996 Chicago Slam Team. He has had his poetry published in the US

and in Canada in journals such as: Michigan Quarterly Review, Bloomsbury Review, Crab Orchard Review,

Another Chicago Magazine, and Malahat Review. He won the 2004 Tia Chucha Press Chapbook Contest for

his chapbook, 30 Seconds. He was a finalist for the 2006 May Swenson Poetry Book Award at the University

of Utah. Currently he is an MFA student at Warren Wilson College.