This is what we lose when we think
about losing. A man sitting, gourd-kneed,
by a cactus in the dark. The ghosts of gnats
clouding the air around his head, but there
are no gnats in this desert. He parts his parchment
lips and they peel into a litany of names
half choked, half sung. The tune eluding
even the wind’s attempts to catch it. Or a young
woman on a park bench somewhere far
north of the desert, a kitten mewing at her
feet. She scoops and ladles thread like soup
into her lap where something is forming, maybe
a scarf or a throw or the one important word
she forgot to say to someone she forgot. Or
ourselves with our fingers pressed together,
our toes pressed to the windshield, the fields
streaking by like they had somewhere more
important to be. The wheat’s bright spears saying
hello little sacrifices, we are waiting for you
here on the ground we will commit you to. And the chill
down your back is not your chill, but mine. We
also share a penchant for shoulder aches
and hallucinations of small birds. I always want to
greet them, to describe them, but like the colors
glinting off your eye, they are gone before I can name them.
—
John A. Nieves has poems forthcoming or recently published in journals such as: Beloit Poetry Journal, Southern Review, Cincinnati Review, 32 Poems, Copper Nickel and Mid-American Review. His first book, Curio, won the Elixir Press Annual Poetry Award Judge’s Prize. He is also winner of the Indiana ReviewPoetry Prize. He is an Assistant Professor of English at Salisbury University and one of the editors of The Shore Poetry. He received my M.A. from USF and my Ph.D. from the University of Missouri.