Matt Dhillon

Butt Joint

Winner of the 2026 American Literary Review Award in Poetry, Judged by Carl Phillips

	
  1. A joint made by fastening the parts together end-to-end without overlap and often with reinforcement.

  2. Meeting of smooth surfaces. Eye skimming the eye. Palm against palm. The closing shift passed to the opening shift.

  3. A weak point. Bracing can be placed at right angles to support the joint.

                              //

There are two rooms. In one, I am falling 
asleep. In the other, my father is waking

up for work, rubbing his hands warm
under pulled parachutes of his breath. 

In one, dreams pool in the thimble of my ear. 
In the other, the radio drips into his.

In one, I stick an alphabet to the wall. 
Pronounce window, keyhole, climb through.

In the other, my father spreads plaster
over drywall. Thin seal, uncracked eggshell.

In one, my father mixes concrete, feeding
shovels of gravel to a gray, churning slush.

In the other, he is concrete. Crushed seashells,
poured slab hardening under my feet.

There are two solitudes. One fills the curve
of my palm like an apple. Sweet bite picked

from the orchard. The other eats the core
from my father’s hand. Worm in the basket.

In one, I’m climbing out of shadow.
In the other, he is climbing into it.

In one, he drinks himself to sleep.
In the other, I sneak out the back way.

One ends in blackout. The other in red
welts lighting my cheek. One brightens

with pain. The other darkens with it.
What resembles a dance is actually 

a building. What resembles an ache
is a beam falling into place. A head 

turning is turning into a hallway.
Wrists and elbows bending at sharp

right angles are the rise and fall of stairs.
The slopes of shoulders are graded earth.

My father weeps in 2 by 6 hemlock boards. 
His back to my back is a wooden door.

What cannot be filled becomes a room. 
Our silence becomes our house. We built it 

together.

Matt Dhillon is a poet from Appalachia, currently pursuing an MFA in the University of Michigan’s Helen Zell Writers’ Program where he also works with the Michigan Quarterly Review. Some of his work can be found in Rattle, storySouth, and About Place Journal.