Short poems about Virginia

2 Apr 2021

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A catalog of things you cannot say, written on the window of my neighbor's home, in the condensation that has eaten our little mountain town.

Some words unpronouncable, others too easy on the tongue, viral and sweetnosed. Some like the spinning cogs in hymns, syllables of some terrible machine. Then after dinner they are gone. Then I remember that I didn't move the bin to the street before collection. This is how the days proceed.

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When you remember that you have forgotten something trivial, but cannot recall what it is — Acquiesce? Bloom? Well, whatever it is, it dripped into me like the first drops of a cold rain sink through your hair. Then was luscious, thrumming, like how rich cake hurts the teeth. Then tiresome.

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Neighbor mowing grass —
I ask him to stop,
He smiles at me

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We borrow sleep from each other like stories, or sugar. I lose a day on your porch. I hold you in the vineyard. There is a city beneath this city, and beneath that city there is a garden. It is for nobody. We go home when it gets dark inside us. The garden overflowing, the ripe fruit rotting quietly.

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Sewing machine like birdsong —
let in the evening through the windows