The Friday Poem: ‘Riding in Cars with (Mostly Straight) Boys’ by Josiah Morgan
Photo: Eric Bard/Corbis via Getty Images
A new poem by Josiah Morgan.
Riding in Cars with (Mostly Straight) Boys
titled after a play by Sam Brooks
I
Back then Kade had a death
wish, driving over a hundred
an hour after school, past
young lads, parents, through
the suburbs, cop cars, girl
friends. I drove too, by
the seat of my pants. Now
Kade’s dead, and I alive,
hurtling faster than a hundy
toward the future. Back
then we went bowling.
Kade scored strikes;
I veered toward the gutter.
II
That night we were parking on the back street
in a cone of sleek overshining light.
You had recited string theory,
stopped to nearly get near me, breathing
readied your next leaving. It was then
I saw the other men in you
and knew we were the same I knew
Today, Chris Tse steps down as the editor of The Friday Poem and passes on the baton to Hera Lindsay Bird. Please send poems to info@thespinoff.co.nz.
Josiah Morgan
Josiah Morgan (Kāi Tahu, Ngāti Maniapoto) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Ōtautahi. His latest book i'm still growing is out with Dead Bird Books now in all good bookstores. His other books were all released in the United States, including his hybrid text The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which was performed as a six-hour-long performance artwork in Auckland Pride 2024. He believes in magic and the power of words to transform. Free Palestine.
