Dophee finger

No magician ever dropped
a jaw quite like the time
we saw Richie
make his real thumb
disappear
from the rest of his fist
with a reciprocating
saw.

For the next decade,
he’d hold his hands out
as if examining a manicure
and say, slight of hand,
indeed, then wink.

During everybody’s marriage
years, he brought many
a bloodless wedding
back to life by taking
a hollow plastic
thumb and making the table
salt disappear.
I’d watch all the old
Catholics in wide lapels
and short glasses of red
waiting for him
to bring it back,
Please, God,
bring it back,
as a dove or a deck
of only aces,
a ribbon of flame
or a roll of coins,
any resurrection of
the salt,
to be thrown,
with conviction,
over his shoulder.

How to save your neighbors in a fire

Wear your cheap coat,
priced for sacrifice,
and throw it over the electric
porch light melting
unannounced and thinning
the house like
a thyroid gone haywire.

Blanket that torch
like it is a drunken ice
fisherman pulled
from Caples Lake.

This is not exactly
what you had in mind
back in late July
when you talked brush
and hoped they’d invite you
to a bonfire.

Be patient.
They must go to the basement,
their hospital wing,
and unplug their mother.
They must drive
her up the steps
and through their forest
of starveling succulents,
past the smoking votives
of chipped precious moments
and old velvet Christs
until they find you
on the porch
dancing atop the fire
trying to keep the flames
from reaching the eaves.

Shovels

Like the rubble it carries
married the back end of
a red ’67 Chevelle.
A soft word
for something that makes it bread
mixing all manner of
earth
beneath a loose
lunar surveillance.

Mike Santora holds an MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from the University of New Hampshire. His work has appeared in New Ohio Review, Booth, Dukool, and others. His first chapbook, Sugarflood, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2017. He lives in Cleveland, Ohio with his wife and two children.