One Poem by K. Iver

By K. Iver

Short Film Starring My Beloved’s Red Bronco

I want the impossible. Another

genre. Time for opening shots
of gravel, a small brick house

where my beloved comes of age.

McCollough Boulevard,

its elevated loops taking him east
away from flat suburbs.

I want you to see his soccer cleats

thrown in the back, fitted for
a girl’s nine. The girls on his team

deserve an entire storyline:
the one in the passenger’s seat trying

not to look at him, surprised

by her want.

Her mother who knows
and doesn’t care deserves

a bigger part. At least a stylist.
Let the mothers who do care,

who punish their daughters’ desire
with exile, let their punishment

remind you that choosing genres

is a luxury. Not for the queers

washing their own used cars.

Shots this film can afford:
mud on the wheels.

Abundant soap and water. More

mud. The bumper sponged by
my beloved’s right hand. A night

drive. A gaping moon. Watch

my beloved reach for the knob,
let the moody synth

of “I’m on Fire” swallow
the view. You won’t see flames.

Nothing that burns
burns a long time.

Still, I need you to stay with it,
this wide frame of a salvage yard,

our Bronco’s new home of rust

eating red. Watch everything I love

flatten.

About the author:

K. Iver is a trans nonbinary poet born in Mississippi. Their work has appeared in Boston Review, Gulf Coast, Puerto del Sol, Salt Hill, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere. They are the 2021-2022 Ronald Wallace Poetry Fellow for the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. They have a Ph.D. in Poetry from Florida State University.