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.
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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.
