![\"\"](\"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Gray-Photo-350x471.jpg\")
Happy National Poetry Month! For this issue of READ LOCAL First (the world’s premier archive of Utah-related writers), we introduce Gray Thomas from Salt Lake City, Utah. Thomas holds a BA in English from the University of Utah and a Masters in Strategic Communication from Westminster College.<\/p>\n
His writing has appeared in Unshod Quills<\/em>,\u00a0Drunk In a Midnight Choir<\/em>,\u00a0enormous rooms<\/em>,\u00a0Button Poetry<\/em>, and Write About Now<\/em> (among other publications). His work is forthcoming in the Winter edition of Plainsong<\/em>.<\/p>\n Two of his poems below, Birds<\/em>\u00a0 and The Scent of Black Tea,<\/em>\u00a0were part of a collection (This Is How Astronomers Look At The Earth) <\/em>that the SLCC Writing Center selected as part of their 30\/30 contest in 2019.<\/p>\n Gray is known for crumpling paper into balls and throwing them behind him. The papers contain love notes or apologies. “I have fallen in love and apologized so often,” he says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Gray is known for crumpling paper into balls and throwing them behind him. The papers contain love notes or apologies. “I have fallen in love and apologized so often,” he says. We are proud to present four of his poems here. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1566,"featured_media":57910,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,2513],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-literary-arts","category-read-local-first"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Gray-Photo.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-09 00:24:59","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1566"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57909"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57921,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57909\/revisions\/57921"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Birds<\/strong><\/h3>\n
1.<\/h4>\n
When she spoke<\/h4>\n
birds flew out of her mouth<\/h4>\n
and flew around the room.<\/h4>\n
<\/h4>\n
At first it was beautiful.<\/h4>\n
We all thought it was<\/h4>\n
a party trick. A nightingale<\/h4>\n
Then a swallow.<\/h4>\n
Then a cockatoo.<\/h4>\n
<\/h4>\n
After the 7th<\/sup> bird<\/h4>\n
the party became concerned.<\/h4>\n
<\/h4>\n
2.<\/h4>\n
He aspired<\/h4>\n
to become a bluebird.<\/h4>\n
He focused on turning his hair<\/h4>\n
into feathers, turning his voice<\/h4>\n
into chirps, his feet into tiny claws.<\/h4>\n
He gave up his career<\/h4>\n
in finance. One day<\/h4>\n
someone asked him<\/h4>\n
about dividends<\/h4>\n
he just pecked at their shoes.<\/h4>\n
<\/h4>\n
3.<\/h4>\n
When she spoke<\/h4>\n
she spoke only of him.<\/h4>\n
<\/h4>\n
The Glasseater<\/h3>\n
There\u2019s nothing to it<\/h4>\n
you just eat a good meal beforehand<\/h4>\n
and that absorbs the shards in your belly<\/h4>\n
so the glass doesn\u2019t cut up<\/h4>\n
the lining, but the risk is always there.<\/h4>\n
<\/h4>\n
The glass<\/h4>\n
should be thin<\/h4>\n
so that you don\u2019t<\/h4>\n
wear down your<\/h4>\n
your teeth.<\/h4>\n
<\/h4>\n
The glasseater does not recommend<\/h4>\n
the fine china. Nor does he recommend glass figurines<\/h4>\n
his mother once owned.<\/h4>\n
The glasseater recommends that you avoid<\/h4>\n
his father\u2019s coffee mugs as well.<\/h4>\n
The glasseater has several other<\/h4>\n
items you could consume.<\/h4>\n
By all means.<\/h4>\n
<\/h4>\n
The glasseater has the vase from 10 years ago.<\/h4>\n
His grandmother\u2019s porcelain duck. She passed away a while ago,<\/h4>\n
so he assumes that it\u2019s fine to eat.<\/h4>\n
There\u2019s the glass coffee table<\/h4>\n
that his ex left him.<\/h4>\n
The top is edible.<\/h4>\n
He doesn\u2019t know what to do with the wooden legs.<\/h4>\n
The glasseater ate the salt and pepper shakers.<\/h4>\n
He didn\u2019t mean to.<\/h4>\n
He was seasoning his plate of freshly prepared glass shards<\/h4>\n
and got confused.<\/h4>\n
Now he just keeps a pile of salt and pepper<\/h4>\n
on the center of the table.<\/h4>\n
Needless to say, the glasseater doesn\u2019t have any windows.<\/h4>\n
The glasseater can throw all the rocks he wants.<\/h4>\n
Show, Don\u2019t Tell<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Show don\u2019t<\/h4>\n
tell me about how you are inexplicable.<\/h4>\n
I want to see how<\/h4>\n
the worker\u2019s fingers are calloused in the<\/h4>\n
joints where he holds a hard<\/h4>\n
handle of a hammer, banging away against a bench<\/h4>\n
or a wall. How it soothes his joints when<\/h4>\n
he grasps his wife\u2019s soft.<\/h4>\n
<\/h4>\n
Show me heavy.<\/h4>\n
Don\u2019t tell me the worker is lonely.<\/h4>\n
I want to hear about the laborer\u2019s fingers<\/h4>\n
falling off after swinging the hammer<\/h4>\n
against a wall for reasons<\/h4>\n
he is unsure of and now<\/h4>\n
he has no finger to wipe away his<\/h4>\n
wife\u2019s tears.<\/h4>\n
<\/h4>\n
But when you show me I want<\/h4>\n
to want more.<\/h4>\n
I want to like it, but not know why,<\/h4>\n
like the taste of metal,<\/h4>\n
or the feel of glass medicine bottles.<\/h4>\n
Wives cry all the time when their<\/h4>\n
husband is a worker<\/h4>\n
who is missing his fingers,<\/h4>\n
so crying wives aren\u2019t enough.<\/h4>\n
Make her<\/h4>\n
not cry,<\/h4>\n
but long for the ridges of fingerprints.<\/h4>\n
which is why she is fucking the foreman.<\/h4>\n
<\/h4>\n
(Something something about the foreman\u2019s wife,<\/h4>\n
but now we\u2019re getting out of hand.)<\/h4>\n
(Now you\u2019re showing me too much.)<\/h4>\n
(No pun intended.)<\/h4>\n
Let\u2019s just focus on the foreman.<\/h4>\n
<\/h4>\n
This is also a labor. To push<\/h4>\n
another man inside you while<\/h4>\n
remembering the color of husband\u2019s eyes.<\/h4>\n
This is also a form weeping.<\/h4>\n
<\/h4>\n
\u201cShow me.<\/h4>\n
I want to see it!\u201d<\/h4>\n
the worker yells.<\/h4>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t just tell me.<\/h4>\n
Show me!\u201d<\/h4>\n
he shouts<\/h4>\n
while grinding out his eyes with a hammer.<\/h4>\n
\u201cI want to see it. I want to.\u201d<\/h4>\n
The Scent of Black Tea<\/strong><\/h3>\n
When Jason came back<\/h4>\n
from the war over there,<\/h4>\n
he was exactly the same<\/h4>\n
as when he left,<\/h4>\n
only a gut full of desert<\/h4>\n
that he couldn\u2019t digest<\/h4>\n
and a hot sun that wouldn\u2019t<\/h4>\n
leave his brain.<\/h4>\n
<\/h4>\n
As the days became tomorrows,<\/h4>\n
he kept being Jason<\/h4>\n
but one night at the bar,<\/h4>\n
I asked him what he remembered.<\/h4>\n
<\/h4>\n
\u201cNothing,\u201d he told me,<\/h4>\n
but the way the whisky slid<\/h4>\n
down his throat<\/h4>\n
I could see someone<\/h4>\n
burning in his eyes.<\/h4>\n
<\/h4>\n
He told the police<\/h4>\n
it was the scent<\/h4>\n
of black tea brewing<\/h4>\n
that made the holes in the wall,<\/h4>\n
that ripped the carpet from the floorboards,<\/h4>\n
that set off his service pistol,<\/h4>\n
that made his wife<\/h4>\n
remove all the glowinthedark stars<\/h4>\n
from the ceiling<\/h4>\n
of their son\u2019s bedroom.<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"