Poetry from Erik Tschekunow

Photo: Edgar Chaparro

On the Form That Requests the Inmate’s Reentry Intentions

I want to write run
a pub, bottom
of the steepest
street, catch
the tripped-up
like a warm
pool, all fizzier
than a tippler’s
wish, the empires
uncorked, the stars
plunged, drop in
an olive, the eye sinks
to unseemly things
give up waiting
for wasted
and repeat
relentlessly we’ve let
our loved ones
down like crystal
gavels, pass out
dice and boxes
of tissues, kneel
by night’s end
at the bar rail
the reflection there
strained, indistinct
the person who’d hoped
so long for freedom.
.

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Poems, along with his parents and son, have helped Erik Tschekunow overcome his addiction and related prison sentence. He is so grateful. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Sun, MacGuffin, The Cortland Review, and a variety of other journals. He was also recipient of the 2020 Rose Warner Poetry Prize from The Freshwater Review.