Exfoliate yourself on pumice beaches. Cull

            nostalgia up for road sign typeface and the shape

                        of cars. Avoid the bars. Forget stars. Carry dull

                                    and folded copies of your name and nation. Vape

                        greenhouse kush with wan and greasy skull-boys. Too high

            at brightest midnight in a viking graveyard, lose

sight of friends and sleep on top of skeletons. Buy

            enough beer-boiled pylsur (with the works) to lose

                        the Arctic mythos under onions and béarnaise.

                                    Gain fifteen pounds and nearly drown in hot pots. Binge

                        on Nordic tongues. Swim in their spit. Meet all the gays;

            pronounce their names just wrong enough to make them cringe.

(They'll fuck you anyway.) Land on one, love with him,

            then part for home with no admission. Pack the fear

                        that mawing Katla aims to make you ash. It's grim —

                                    but you're American and prone to disappear.
 

Samuel Wright Fairbanks was born in Massachusetts and raised on the internet. He writes prose, poetry, and miscellany. Sam was a finalist for Frontier Poetry’s 2018 Summer Poetry Award and has pieces published on the New England Review of Books. He holds an MFA in Fiction Writing from Columbia University. His current project is a collection of poetry on post-reality and depersonalization. (2019)