PCC INSCAPE MAGAZINE
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Need to Testify

A poem by Brandon Cesmat

The some of the how is that I couldn’t pull the trigger, not because I couldn’t kill him, but
because he had a woman, not my wife, with him. How many times have we sung along, “Can I get a
witness?” when in fact we are the witness, but don’t know what we see and how it fits a need? So when
I took his loaded, unlocked forty-five from beside his bed after reading her messages on his unlocked
phone, I walked down the road and locked his gate so when he got out to spin in the combo, I could step
from behind the trees. Kneecap or skull, I hadn’t decided, so the silhouette of a woman with hair not-
my-wife’s saved his life and his knee. Motive anew, stay free to tell the truth, witness like a bullet that
he had other business, and I had none other than her, that all that’s left after long life is love, and love is
like real estate: location, location, location. I’m finding ways to be beside, beside, beside, around,
​around, around.

Brandon Cesmat teaches at CSUSM and his books include When Pigs Fall in Love and Light in All Directions.
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  • Healing Arts Chapbook No.6
  • 2022 Handley Awards
  • About
    • PCC Inscape Instagram
  • Feral Parrot : The Blog
  • INTERVIEWS
  • Inscape Alumni Board
  • SUBMISSIONS
  • ISSUE ARCHIVE
    • 2016 Fall Online
    • 2016 Sppring Online
    • 2017 Fall Online
    • 2017 Print Issue - Manifesto TOC
    • 2018 Fall Print Issue - Frankenstein TOC
    • 2018 FA Frankenstein Companion
    • 2018 Summer Online
    • 2018 Fall Folio - VOTE
    • 2018 Fall Spirituality
    • 2019 Celebrating Dia De Los Muertos
    • 2019 SPR Mental Health Companion >
      • Issue Intro
    • 2019 Fall Folio -- Moon Moon
    • 2019 Fall Folio
    • 2020 Summer Folio
    • 2020 Feb Folio
    • 2021 Feb Folio