Austin Davis Reads #Poetry - Saturday Morning Cartoons

AUSTIN DAVIS READS 
FROM
CLOUDY DAYS, STILL NIGHTS
SATURDAY MORNING CARTOONS

Saturday Morning Cartoons
 
We used to watch cartoons
on Saturday mornings
when the string of tin
cans rattling behind the rusty
cars outside was strangely
unironic. We would lie
 
with our bellies to the carpet,
pressing our faces closer
and closer to the screen
until Batman’s batarang
shocked the tip of our noses.
Maybe that’s why I always
 
thought the neighbor’s
hedges were green horses.
Imagination was only half
the equation. Now, 10
years later, it seems we’ve
become accustomed to
the dirt roads pulled tight
around our skin.
 
I, for one,
never questioned why
we got grinning masks
for our 18th
birthdays instead of
lottery tickets or cigars.
 
We were all adorned
with the same
disguise - always one size
too loose. I guess they wanted
our warm breath to suffocate
under their scrubbed skin, bleached
paler than the lovers
that used to live on the moon.
 
It’s only now, as I wait for you 
on a morning stained by yellow
clouds, that my reflection
swirling in the black coffee
reminds me more of The Joker. 

Saturday Morning Cartoons is an excerpt from Austin's first poetry collection, Cloudy Days, Still Nights coming this SUNDAY from Moran Press. Click here to get a copy now!!!!

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