Sean Cho A.

ACCORDING TO

science I Should be dead
but as a boy I was told
the story of the man
who lived a week
or so inside
the stomach of a whale
and you still wonder
why I’ve been careless
Six months ago
you found me
with nicotine patches
stuck to my temples
yelling at the Gods
What else can you expect
from me With a face
like that how could I tell you
about the months
I spent in rehab gambling
hair ties and mouth-favors
with people I never knew
I begged at God
and you found me
I use to believe
my landlord would find
my body a week into July
and call my father
He’d cry over the long-haired
vodka-soaked liver
With my casket closed
he’d talk about the son
I use to be He’d speak
of heaven as if we’d
be reunited there
not knowing God
already answered
each of my ugly demands

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Sean Cho A. is the author of American Home (Autumn House 2021) winner of the Autumn House Publishing chapbook contest. His work can be future found or ignored in Copper Nickel, Pleiades, The Penn Review,  The Massachusetts Review, Nashville Review, among others. He is currently an MFA candidate at the University of California Irvine and the Associate Editor of THRUSH Poetry Journal.  Find him @phlat_soda