Portrait of Wally, 1912

posted Nov 10, 2009

This song will be for your nakedness
in the dark and to sounds the green leaves make

when you will away a garden snake.
This song will be

everlasting like dates
in the darkness of a freezer

for you to take
out in the night to eat in the mid of day

the next day, or the next day,
or the evening. Thinking

of meals like this leaves
me thinking about the nameless

man in the corner.
Meals like this leave me thinking of you.

If we are to remember
the shampoo, we will be reminded:

I would love nothing more than to never forget the warmth of your body.

Water feels so peaceful
running against the small of our backs.

Let's grow gills and live
under an island designed by men

shaped like a lullaby. As the way
a waltz dumps itself

onto Egon's canvases, we'll twitch—
this is the way we'll learn to swim.

A. Minetta Gould was raised in a mitten by a beautician. After transplanting herself to the West, all ambitions are swayed by trains. A. Minetta edits the journal and press Lonesome Fowl, and her most recent work can be found in LeftFacingBird, Unsaid, and Caketrain.

Gould’s poem “Upon Fox finding Hound; Causing Motion” also appears in this issue.