Transition Poem 48 @ Dec. 26, 2016

Kyle Coma-Thompson
Tacitus Jr.

His whole
autobiography 
	was one
	long howl 
of wounded head. So

he deserves some credit
for not writing it. 

	
	*

Instead he surveyed the
power brokering of

the cannibal 
elite, recorded them for

the sake of honesty and 
moral veto. They lived

well regardless, and 
passed their laws.

All so the helpless 
might adhere to them. 


	*

He once read somewhere
students in Australia (or
	was it

	        South
		   Africa) studied
for springtime exams 

under jacaranda trees in bloom,
for good        luck.

One day he would have to write
the history of the 

working classes under one. 



	*

They held to one
another and fought

   and cursed and kissed
   and sang their endearing 

        fight songs, tumbling
        a long fall all the

way. Like blossoms. This book,

for what purpose did he write it,

but to open it one day, and catch them? 

Closing it, he keeps them, safe, hidden, preserved,

indistinguishable from any other book on the table. 


	*

The barbarians were his people, 

though they looked on him as a Roman.

Every day he conquered himself.

And so, both victor and loser, was one.

Kyle Coma-Thompson is the author of the short story collections The Lucky Body (Dock Street Press, 2014) and Night in the Sun (Dock Street Press , 2016). The title story for his first book was included by Ben Marcus in the anthology New American Stories (Vintage, 2015).

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