A Translation of Slightly Misheard Lyrics

I heard your missiles. Here. There’s nothing broken. you’re just haunted – it happens to the best of us.

Mostly real blood flows through you, some wound
for you to love.

The stranger
you pass
.   on a string.

(inaudible moaning/ inarguable waiting.)

Sunken
through the coldest
age.

Mist.

Understood.

***

My Daughter Is Flying a Kite for the First Time and I Am Caught up in It

Like a sort of God,
that nostalgia fixed in a cloud-
clotted sky.

Her hands are so small
and still
holding this down;
the power
within them.

She’s smiling, oh,
like her head could open up
all into a mouth, she’s that
happy.

I’m back.
I’m behind her
and I am back
to running, hard
as I can
against the wind

That string trailing
behind me, just praying
that it will catch, that she will

feel that pull.

***

C.C. Russell has published his poetry and prose widely in such journals as The Meadow, New York Quarterly, The Colorado Review, Split Lip Magazine, and Whiskey Island among others. He has been nominated for several Pushcart prizes and for Best of the Net. He lives in Wyoming with a couple of humans and several cats. You can find more of his work at ccrussell.net