Poetry
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Wrecks and Reefs Reefs and Wrecks the Future Has No Time
BJ Love
for your more common palms. Texas has no time for you
and your sorrow-filled psalms. I called you last Saturday to
talk up hand anatomy. I called you last Saturday to talk up
the unique delight of setting foot into the Gulf of Mexico.
The ladyfish, the scamp, the greater amberjack. Our varied
waries. Our ferried worries. Our buried journeys. I’m actually
just walking through the seafood section of my local Kroger
thinking of pizza and what a handshake means in the oil-rich
South. Pork chops, a bag of apples, and a People magazine.
George Clooney, the actor, got married in Venice, Italy.
Matt Damon was there, and it says the food was quite good.
Between the commercials for flours in aisle seven, Willie
Nelson sings about yesterday’s wine. Gather your bouquets.
Please, let us pray. Parlez-vous français? I don’t even know
what I’m talking about anymore. Texas goes on further than
any of us can imagine. And what then? What then? Mexico
motherfucker. Or maybe New Mexico, motherfucker. Or
maybe even Arkansas, Texarkana. The air is well conditioned.
The air here is almost chilly. But seeing as this is a grocery
store, we came prepared for such regional delicacies. Today
the gray sky opened up like a magnolia. We sat there, all 4
million of us, like so many nestled eggs. We sat there, all 4
million of us, and grew restless. Look at how indulgent I am.
These clouds are suggestive, sure, of some new way to think
about Texas and where we are in it, but my eyes can only see
the same shit we all can. And like that, a lightning bolt weaves
its way around the clouds and you struggle to remember which
coastal seabird is known to have a beak large enough to string
such things into our atmosphere, only to recall then that birds
can’t carry lightning, no, birds can only become the lightning.
But, you think, I’ll look that up once I put these groceries away.
BJ Love teaches 6th grade English in Houston, TX. Recent work can be found in The North American Review, Barrelhouse blog, and Hobart.