Stella Wong

response to a tracklist from god quarantining with his ex

to get around

human resources and chivalry, God,

i ask you to the track every fortnight, and without fail

you fail to respond. our first and last run

the park sends down biblical rain then, there

is a hole in your slowly flooding sneaker’s toe. thanksgiving

in a pandemic lockdown, you say you’ll fly

into a wildly racist state

or a wildly racist and bath-salt-snorting puppy-eating crocodile state.

it’s a full-time Job when i’m not upright, bearing

your tracklists of rock and rollers and other high

priests who destroyed followers in the name of love.

you love your dog so much you’re two bus stops away

from your ex’s house to be nearby when

the apocalypse and the takeout get here

which really shows me my place.

i’m accusing you like Satan.

when christmas rolls around you’ll see

if you have dog-sitting duties. now she vacations in a global quarantine.

the shots you’ve fired off from her empty place—the unfamiliar floors

are powerfully white, i simply cannot explain it.

like Florida, i’m an unfamiliar battleground

and on mimosa Sundays, your old pet isn’t even cute though

animals domesticated early as wolves look defenseless

to survive. they always look back,

then forward, then back up at their humans. needy

but i feel that. yours freezes and points at rabid squirrels—it tracks

so hunters could tell where pheasants fell from the sky. the climate-change-

denier tells me couples adopt dogs to prepare for their future

children. another kind

of plague. you ask why you weren’t invited to my birthday

and God, i’m just so tired of running

after you, especially in your adverse conditions.

Nikki Wallschlaeger