American Mystic

We like getting erased inside the music
At the river where youth is so vertical 

Sublimating to the sound 
Of an 808, a bead of sweat
On the idiomatic jaw
Of a dead popstar, a rabbit crouching 
Beneath rifle sights

All the birds shine like ghosts
Floating into the open mouth of evening

All the goth kids move in unison
Brushing up against
The worn matrix of aging

When the real gets wicked off the air
Life passes but there’s no contingency
Life is bright and teeming

Another punk kid
In an Islanders jersey

Slumped in an office park
Astral projecting into heaven

—

from American Mystic—published by Illicit Zines

Buy the chapbook here

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Hunter Larson is a poet from the midwest currently living in western Massachusetts. He is the author of the chapbooks American Mystic (b l u s h/illicit zines, 2026), Desire Lines (Press Brake, 2025) and was the winner of the Poetry Project’s 2023 Lisa Brannan Prize. He co-edits the poetry journal and critical archive Little Mirror.