Tony Mancus

from Song Like a Saw

Joshua is thinking
about magic in
the bar where
they surround us

in wood The connections
between intention and recurrence
how a name will
come into your

mind and then appear
weeks later in a
book A dead artist
say who drowned trying

to cross the Atlantic
I dream of
a friend I’ve
not spoken to

in years Her tiny
skateboard roaming
the wood floors of
her grandmother’s house

in Scranton
with her
on it
Could draw

the wheels and
the radio brings
me a band
we listened to

endlessly in 1994
How frank Stanford’s lover’s
best friend attended
the house show

at Gion and Mike’s
and I thought to
write all the writers
I know to tell

them I love them
But here sit in
the heating seat of
a car in the snow

as the earth calls
me home Hi home I’m
a lien on your stiffening
surface A lone rabbit in

the street in the
snow How so much
of writing is one
scene after another

The loose string and
dots in a shape
we recognize or record
I used to know

all the chords
to at least
three songs The
coincidence of their

sameness repeating
against the better
judgement of any
speaker system We’ll

be barred
from our
own voices
soon enough

Tony Mancus is the author of two full-length books, Same After Life (Gasher, 2024) and All the Ordinariness (The Magnificent Field, 2022). He serves as chapbook editor for Barrehouse, works as an instructional designer, and lives in Colorado with his wife, son, and two black cats.