Two Poems

by Garrett MacKenzie

Davy Crockett in a Walmart

He’s wandering the uorescent halls
in a coonskin cap, Bowie knife on his hip.
He’s arguing with the cashier,
something about the price of corn

and he can’t figure out how to use the card reader.
Now they won’t take his cash
I want to help him,
it’s just so pathetic

As Above, So Below

there is a stairway that each of us climbs
stretching to the heavens
rarely looking over
we hold the banisters
fixated on the step ahead
the platform on the horizon
if we reach the zenith
when we take that first horizontal step
we’ll be met with jagged staircases and winding corridors
I would rest a bit

Garrett MacKenzie was born and raised in Rochester, New York, before going on to study English and Political Science at SUNY Oswego. After graduating he moved to the Pacific Northwest to start a career in wildfire. He is currently a career smokejumper. He has spent the past five years traveling and chasing fires across the North American continent. He spends his winters with his fiancée, Tori, and their two dogs, Talulah and Finley.