Max Cohen




Delta

My rule book says “don’t touch anybody” over and over. 
I leave home for an electrical closet, find new friends 
& mice there. I don’t think I’m wrong. Upstairs girl makes toast,
picks eraser flesh from her nose, writes for the paint 
that sings “I sing and am fragile,”
writes to shut them up, really. Everyone downstairs
holds cups to their ears, they and mice get along 
better than anyone. German doesn’t sound funny to them.
Upstairs girl agrees. She, me and mice
all in the same boat, all play the same game:
“which one of us won’t ever be 40.” Like Twister
it never leads to sex. My rule book says 
“don’t touch anybody” over and over & I keep it
because I don’t think I’m wrong. This is my armor. 
If I don’t get a cup I’ll wear it all my life. When night comes
I pass it around the boat and we all take turns.





No Home

Here an
invisible bone
to divide with,
available, 
breaking all
wet with it, 
slowly. In 
April I wait for 
a day & damp 
shoes make me 
happy. Tim 
says “what’s 
lovely about 
big white space 
is not touching 
it.”

A white for the 
hour, I see it I 
drink what I 
drink when I see 
it. Last summer 
Tim took a 
mouthful of
wasps to the 
porch & 
everything 
opened:
honey and 
greywood, 
sun for the 
horses—I always 
fall for this.

I slept in an old 
home for bodies 
in quiet spots 
made up of 
rainsmell
“you know lots 
of boys have 
bones you 
don’t.”
Cotton tooth 
Tim, gauze for 
the horses.

It’s dark in the 
desert, no street 
song to follow, 
nothing from 
Tim or his belly 
of bees. 
End of an 
end of things.
Deep in his
bed he/she 
said (maybe) 
“This is it, last 
time I ask for my 
music. This is it 
this is it” five 
days over, by the 
end of it melting, 
light like an 
echo, sharp 
boneless
heat.

Small prick of 
violence, nothing 
for dinner, no 
safety in years.
Yesterday Tim 
made death
from a lampshade
of wasps.










Max Cohen is an MFA candidate at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, currently residing in Northampton. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Ilk, Big Big Wednesday, and Columbia Poetry Review. He also keeps a blog of his unpublished poetry and works in progress at hardlyarthardlygarbage.tumblr.com