Robert Gable Potts received an MFA in creative writing from University of California, Riverside-Palm Desert Graduate Center in August 2009.
He is currently poetry editor for The Coachella Review, an online literary journal. His work has appeared in Solstice, Pacific Review and Starry Night Review. 1957
Watch the western sky, she said. The flash
will come from there.
But don't look at the light, it can blind.
When it rains, stay inside. Seal
windows & doors with duct tape, plastic tarps.
Be safe, children—
Café Silicon
Man seeks woman
for experiment in wireless
(see remote) intimacy.
Emphasis on postmodernism.
Object: relationship-based
IM and email attachment
(note: webcam still in shop).
Neither geography nor motherboard
holds relevance in choice of cybermate.
A passion for Nikola Tesla
chatrooms, Second Life, midnight espresso
shots and long walks on a virtual
beach earns a candidate a gold cupid
sticker next to her username.
Dark Water
A tiny seashell caught her eye,
a rose scallop adrift in wash.
She scooped wet sand, sorted
through dross bits, but the shell
escaped her net & took with it
a memory, framed in blue sky:
her mother blowing a conch
to celebrate father's return
from the Gulf War. One month
later, he shot mother in our kitchen,
bent down to watch her eyes glaze
over & then stuck the M9 muzzle
in his mouth, the way an infant
pulls a swollen teat to its lips.
Just Flip the Switch
Used masking tape to cover
all his windows with layers of newspaper
& spray-painted the mirrors
black, that included an old Philco TV screen.
Moved his secondhand furniture
to the garage, stacked it & covered the pile
with black surplus tarps. Spray-painted
the appliances black, except one.
Unplugged his vintage Frigidaire, took off
the doors & made a candle-lit shrine
for St. Dymphna, complete with Tupperware fonts
& cereal box relics, all black.
He prayed for guidance, a sign.
The Waring blender told him to reach
inside the garbage disposal, that
he'd find his answers stuck to the bottom.
Not Here
The voices behind the glass
leaked through in syllables; words
slowly crystallized, pushed
through the air ducts—
chained / closet / worst case / catatonia
Too busy looking down
at their hard clipboards to know
I heard them, too busy
dreaming they're in control
to know I've already
drawn myself into
a purple box. I used the crayons
they left out, hoping
to find ways to reach me. But
they'll never get inside—
I made the walls too thick
& there's no window
to press your face against, no
lid or door,
not of any color.