‘Half-Life of a Birthday Gift’, ‘Geography’ & ‘Math’

Will Neuenfeldt studied English at Gustavus Adolphus College and his poems are published in Capsule Stories, Months to Years, and Red Flag Poetry. He lives in Cottage Grove, MN, home of the dude who played Steven Stifler in those American Pie movies and a house Teddy Roosevelt slept in. Instagram.com/wjnpoems.

Half-Life of a Birthday Gift

Green sweater
with rough cuffs
reads
World’s Greatest Grandpa
in cracked print
between
one of eight coatracks
at the local Goodwill
until a freshman girl
purchases said garment
for the upcoming
funny sweater kegger.

Geography

She’s Argentina and I’m Chile
as blue duvet crashes
atop only her pale coasts.
There’s a sea on my side
but limited to 5 am skies
behind windowpanes.
She is tropical everywhere
except her legs which is why
my feet are buried under
Patagonia sweaters while I shiver
into Easter Island stone
yet there’s no border
I’d rather share than between
our two bodies of water.

Math

Dad set the clocks in the house five minutes fast
so on-time and late were synonyms in his thesaurus
which he’d recite other pages at loud registers.
I subtracted that number from every value
as neighbor’s addresses shifted the next door down
and I was never sure if dad turned into
the right parking lot driving five over the limit.
The night before I’d have nightmares about
forgetting my locker combo and for the first
couple tries you could’ve convinced me
that I overslept and was late to class
where every A- on a quiz was a B+ and
I only got 100’s on projects with extra credits.
During football practice, I’d over pull my gap
where there was no teammate to block and
I’d hear Dad’s yell again but in a thick, Jersey accent.
On the sideline I’d watch the cheerleaders
work on their choreography and how
they all moved their left leg, then their right,
before moving their left leg again
to the unpredictable beats of dubstep until
locking eyes with the girl I once overheard
describe me to her cheer partners as a five.

Will Neuenfeldt studied English at Gustavus Adolphus College and his poems are published in Capsule Stories, Months to Years, and Red Flag Poetry. He lives in Cottage Grove, MN, home of the dude who played Steven Stifler in those American Pie movies and a house Teddy Roosevelt slept in. Instagram.com/wjnpoems.