Academic Unraveling

I-80 East

Polar jets thrust me toward flat America,
fogged my mountain past.
Jays sang atop hickories
to guide me through humidity.
Did I drift from Pacific gold-fame-citrus
into self-immolation? Did I sunder
my geographic compass?

I-80 West

A manuscript doesn’t breathe life
like stalwart Joshua trees
or Mendocino brine. Happiness
lies not in Great Plains hieroglyphics
but bodies thriving in apocalyptic heat.
No academic honorific knows me:
knuckles dry, bones jagged.

Corporate Hierarchy

I’ve met bureaucracy:
a tailor-made pantsuit
with an order to enforce new policies
thought up at her midsize, East Coast
alma mater. Her dream job is here,
westward, smart grads love to nestle
in the desert with me. I hate her—no,
wish I could hate her
white skin, straight brunette hair,
perfect HR smile.
I’m told she’s the devil in stilettos.

But the devil doesn’t wear Prada—
he wears suede, wing-tipped Oxfords
in his too-large executive office.
The boss sports a Rolex that puts
compensation trucks to shame.
What I truly want
is to fuck with him—no,
fuck him and his receding hairline
and pasty palms and sedentary flab
until I forget I blamed
administrative procedure.

SB254: Revises provisions relating to carbon reduction
From public testimony given at the March 12, 2019, meeting of the Senate Committee on Growth and Infrastructure at the Nevada Legislature

math isn’t science   it’s prediction   witchcraft
what’s a model   it’s not science   i don’t believe it—
i don’t believe it   testimony screams mythology,
mythology   the agenda of politicos   of bought
mathematicians   what’s math anyway   it’s not science
make policy   don’t predict the future
a model is flawed   it can’t predict scientific truth
i’ve seen truth—   real science
mathematicians don’t know science
i live in reality   it’s around us
predictive models   algorithms
they’re lies   math lives in
fiction   i live in science

Dani Putney is a queer, non-binary, mixed-race Filipinx poet from the American West. Their poetry most recently appears in The Fourth River, Glass, LandLocked, and Tule Review, among other publications. They reside amid cowboys in the Nevada desert. To read more of their work, click here.