John Myers

Rubbed clean as summer

The gaudily painted poles,

the ruined orchard of me

wanting you, I wished I could

tell all these fantasies off.

I see your name in the flowers

that have no antecedent.

Most days I don’t want to keep

the circle going but whales,

new-born, must surface at once

to breathe (and your eyes out me).

Night blots its own

The cool grotto in the hills

I could still feel it working

that time of day, every day,

curling in on itself,

a leather pouch with molars.

Another place I’d been told

was not mine. You ask if I

have a bag, people walk through

us as through a curtain. You

collect your mouth up

and the gesture makes me want to,

too, to match its triumph.