Boy's Guide to Pyrotechnics

My first death is in the basement

on the concrete  at the blade

of my father’s shovel  slim

black snake coiled  garden hose

and no spigot—roadkill season

headless deer season  hacksaw

and trophy season comes after

Thanksgiving  ODOT

pickups rove the highway

we dodge traffic to miss them

on the way to Walmart

in the snow  gloves and cover

-alls  the men pitch wintered

muscle into truck beds  our

brothers  our cousins  their

foam napalm  their burning tires

they go too glassy to teach

there is a raccoon in the cemetery

there are stakes fence-wired

into a headstone crucifix  this

is not ours  this

won’t ever

be ours.

Alicia Wright is a writer from Appalachia whose work appears or is forthcoming in SWING, APARTMENT Poetry, As It Ought To Be, New Croton Review, and elsewhere. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Pictura Journal, and her first poetry collection will be published by Pulley Press in 2026. She currently resides in West Virginia. You can find her on Instagram at @ajwright304