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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