Poetry: “Jesus Year” by Derrick Austin

on my 33rd birthday

My clogged sink coughs up foul water. 
My skeletal philodendron. My only tattoo 
quotes a Morgan Parker poem: 
I drink the glamour / even when it makes me sick.
I have a bottle of purple gin. My journal is blue
with questions about forgiveness
I’m afraid to ask. 
I have a brother, a dad, and a mom with an old, ornery manx:
lately, I’ve treated all but the cat coldly.
I have L’s cerulean sweater
that warmed me through a winter without work.
I had my last cigarette in grad school
(with a friend I haven’t seen in years):
after happy hour, D replenished his pipe at the tobacco store
and I bought a loosie
to gesture with mainly, 
feeling grown and knowing—a decade ago 
so much hadn’t yet happened,
for example, my first crackup.
The birth of my godchild. 
Moonlight hadn’t even won Best Picture.
I stroll around the lake
(low from drought),
consoled by the city’s joyful noise
and bright reflection.
Water birds 
huddle in the marsh.
I must be kinder to myself.

About Derrick Austin

Derrick Austin is the author of Tenderness (BOA Editions, 2021) and Trouble the Water (BOA Editions, 2016). His first chapbook, Black Sand, is recently out from Foundlings Press.