Though today’s poem from Seth Pennington ends in “normalcy,” it is anything but “normal,” as it unleashes a cascade of lush, passionate images.
—
Us, Ourselves
Imagine ourselves back
in the heat and thunder
throws of that summer
that beat teeth
into the throat
the cavity of affair
panging the jaw
and nausea a coil
drilled in my stomach
as when my knee peeled
back to the back side
of my leg and breath
was a dry convulsion.
Imagine telling
how futures change
in an instant
under the clean of the moon
and the dirt taste of
dive bar tongues
flavored with red lattice
licorice and boot heels
how beds become shared
bodies held but never
touching.
Imagine then
back in the impossible
planes full of
anxiety and anxiety
medication
to ward off geese
impact or failed
engines the ease
of San Francisco hills
our bellyfuls of Thai tea
firecrackers on New
Year’s heard through
thin-walled hotel rooms
wrapped in Glenn camellias
that bloom promise named
like your brother
buried
treasured this way
he blesses us.
Imagine then
us together writing vows
delivering them
two men in Boston
granting normalcy to what is most
natural.
***
Editor’s Note: Seth Pennington has published with us before. Check out his wonderfully daring “How It Is Going to End.”
Originally published in Assaracus Issue #9
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