The Year is 1978 - Daniel Brennan

The year is 1978 which is an
anagram for molecules or head wound and a
boy just said he cannot love me anymore
Love is something saved for
the shake of distant evergreens and Milk
saucers and troubled bay waters
with their bleating eyes
His molecules and my
molecules simmer in the peak of November
because it isn’t safe to speak here
Anywhere Somewhere the lesser gods take a chess piece off the board

[EXT: a lone cable car wails at the hill-backed moon over San Francisco]

The year is 1978 and it’s a splinter-cell of
headlines swept up into a garbage-can fire We must keep warm here in
the back of red districts The day is an open ground-floor window
gasping for relief
It welcomes him Death with his sweaty hands and pale face and easy rage

[ESTABLISHING SHOT: once in the wrist,
twice in the chest – two more in the head at close range as if to steal his dreams]
Did you know that love
licks its ego bites a
body
as it waits face-down on the floors of City Hall, haloed with blood?
When did he stop loving me? When did the stars devour themselves?

The year is 1978 and it’s a fevered obituary

We ride this train with no conductor [DIR’S NOTE: she’s identifying bodies]
and feel the tracks shake loose Our teeth like railroad spikes
I still think about the boy who cannot love me anymore and the many
boys who are told that they’ll never go home again and how
this double-desecration eats our sun alive with a scream of gold teeth
and White Nights and
molecules soundproofed against
a world of exit wounds

[INT: my body shuddering across courtrooms, my limbs heavy with progress]

I’m one of many boys singing his mouthless song tonight
The year is 1978 which is
a slant rhyme for tragedy

Originally published by CP Quarterly 2021

Daniel Brennan (he/him) is a queer writer and coffee devotee from New York. Sometimes he is in love, but just as often he is not. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and has appeared in numerous publications, including The Penn Review, Sky Island Journal, and ONE ART. He can be found on Twitter and Instagram: @dannyjbrennan