<\/p>\n
is the note I left for myself
\non the introduction page
\nof a poetry book
\nthree years ago.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I did not wake up eating donuts in the rain
\nexcept for once
\nwhen I was a kid
\nand even then I was dreaming.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I\u2019m always dreaming
\nof an elsewhere
\nwhere the reams of grass
\nI tucked into a wicker basket
\nlast July have not withered
\nand the grease of fast food
\nslides off my fingers like sunlight
\nand a child touches a mirror, feeling
\nunlike a severed power line.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I was not that child.
\nWhen I was nine, I wrote a song
\nabout the black tongue of death
\nbefore I even knew what it looked like.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know what to make of that
\nor if everything is a river
\nthough I keep having the persistent feeling
\nthat everything is supposed to be a river
\neven bad things
\nlike loneliness.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Three years ago, I was lonely
\nand writing sad notes to myself
\nlike screaming into a shower head.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Since then
\nMason died
\nand Savanah moved to New York
\nand Gracie left New York for L.A.
\nand Sarah gave birth
\nand I decided against writing summary poems
\nbut here I am.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
When I say I\u2019m always dreaming <\/p>\n The couch back pushed against another couch back <\/p>\n You can just say a lot of things <\/p>\n but once love gets involved <\/p>\n The last person who touched me naked, <\/p>\n I could write an entire symphony <\/p>\n I slap the back of a friend, <\/p>\n The news blurs into the radio, <\/p>\n Remember you are a river\u2014<\/em> <\/p>\n Three years ago I was not having sex, <\/p>\n But today, <\/p>\n into the community courtyard <\/p>\n I open a poetry book and read <\/p>\n Sometimes <\/p>\n You want to wake up Jarrett Moseley is the note I left for myself on the introduction page of a poetry book three years ago. I did not wake up eating donuts in the rain except for once when I was a kid and even then I was dreaming. I\u2019m always dreaming of an elsewhere where the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":8386,"template":"","categories":[9,49,119],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8385","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aquifer","category-literary-features","category-poetry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nthat\u2019s not what I mean
\nbut that there\u2019s a place inside me called outwards<\/em>
\nwhere each thing faces away
\nfrom the next thing.<\/p>\n
\nwhich is facing away from the mirror
\nwhich is facing away from the window
\nwhich is facing away from the outside lawn
\nwhich is facing away from the world\u2019s
\nviolent unbuckling.<\/p>\n
\nand get away with it
\nand even without music
\nor a bicycle wreck set on a loop forever
\nor waving one\u2019s arms in circles from a distance<\/p>\n
\nthe whole thing turns red-tinted and jutted.<\/p>\n
\nwe didn\u2019t even have sex
\nwe didn\u2019t even know each other
\nwe just slept in the same bed
\nwith our feet barely brushing,
\nwhich is more intimate than sex
\nthen never spoke again.<\/p>\n
\non things more intimate than sex.<\/p>\n
\na boy holds the book at just the right angle,
\nwe watch the car skid out on the road.<\/p>\n
\na stone reverses back through a window,
\nthe ground is seared with footprints.<\/p>\n
\nmaybe that\u2019s what the note should have said,
\nto move inside the banks of my body
\nthrough absolute loneliness
\nto write not about the leaf stuck in my hair
\nbut rather, the wind that put it there.<\/p>\n
\nno one was sleeping in my bed,
\nmy shoulder was like a stick in the mud,
\nand I didn\u2019t even dream.<\/p>\n
\non the 12th of March,
\npollen scattered like yellow DNA
\nacross the glass porch table
\nthat points outwards<\/p>\n
\nwhere a girl mounts her pink tricycle
\nas her father pushes behind,
\ninto the 70-degree warmth
\nswarming the dogwood trees
\nand the cardinals they carry,
\ninto the peace of learning
\nto love the clich\u00e9
\nof blooming hope,<\/p>\n
\nthe note I had forgotten about.<\/p>\n
\nyou don\u2019t want to dream.
\nSometimes you don\u2019t want to think
\nabout death
\nor loneliness
\nor even sex.<\/p>\n
\neating donuts in the rain,
\nto feel the river rise,
\nand to float a letter
\nto yourself
\nfrom one world
\nhoping it finds you
\nhappily in the next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"