Description
Winner of the Spring 2014 Black River Chapbook Competition
From his first appearance on the page, “we knew he was bound for something unsolvable.” But a little thing like futility can’t stop our hero from holding up a magnifying glass to a world “so bright it’s impossible to understand.” In this searching, provocative collection of coming-of-age sonnets, the sad boy detective listens close, collects the evidence, and reimagines the strange landscapes of a life, a body, a boy, a self. Through a questioning, fervent lens, Sam Sax’s sad boy / detective reminds us how deeply bizarre and at times undecipherable all this existence stuff truly is.
THE BOY DETECTIVE DISCOVERS HIS BODY
he knows when the lights in his room black
out his body can become whatever he imagines.
some nights a dragon. some nights a field of wet
thumbs. on the best nights he is still a boy
with clothing that burns from his skin until
it’s just him floating a full foot off the bed naked
and trying to open himself so light will pour
out into the blackness. the first time he came
the room exploded into a clean bright bandage,
every question raging through his blood dulled.
his own private anesthetic. the knowledge that
no matter what matter spills out of him it will
always be light. the perfect hypothesis.
the bed that swallows him when he is done.
© Chris Unguez 
