John
Yohe has worked for the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park
Service for sixteen years as a firefighter and now a fire lookout.
Your love
I lift your
love out of its cage
writhing in
my hands
hissing and
rattling
open mouth
fangs
scales smooth
and slippery
an earth
scent
I lower your
love scared and angry
to the ground
to walk upon
to test my
faith
to
demonstrate my dominion
and your love
accepts my weight
and I speak
in tongues
raising your
love again
draping it
around my neck
it rises
glaring
as if to
strike
as if to bite
but instead
lowers itself
nuzzling
down into my
shirt
The
day before the wedding
The
day before the wedding she and I
met
at the lake and took a walk along
the
beach with shoes in hand the sun still bright
though
setting fast the wind and waves still strong
and
loud
our
feet in cool wet sand and she
looked
down and said no more tomorrow I’ll
be
married we can still be friends and it
was
no surprise I know that women see
these
things as endable like that and I
do
not and grabbed her hair to kiss her but
she
pushed away
we
turned around to go
back
to our lives and she looked at me
and
shivered and asked me quietly do
you
know where wind comes from
it
comes from heat
lv,
Heather
John–
Had
a good day this afternoon. Went out with Joe to Sweetwaters. We had
drinks and we read. I read Galway Kinnell’s Three Books,
and Joe read some lame-ass book on how to make a million dollars.
Christ, how do I end up with these people, really? The entire time in
the café I was looking out the window, and the sun was out and
hitting our table and I kept thinking that Geoffrey was sitting
across from me rather than Joe. How terrible, I know but it was
actually very nice. So long as I didn’t look at Joe or talk to him
I could actually imagine that it was Geoff. And I kept wishing that
he’d walk in somehow. Yes, I am a goner on this one. Yes, indeed,
but for the most part, I’m enjoying myself. We ate a pear tart, Joe
and I. And I nearly cried at how beautiful it was in the sunlight,
and how wonderful it tasted, and how I’d give anything to be
sharing it with Geoff rather than Joe. First off, Joe ate over half
of the thing without even thinking about it. Geoff never would have
done that. I am constantly thinking of being someone else’s
girlfriend. God, why do I do this? What I was thinking in that chair,
at that table, in the sunlight, while drinking my latte, was wouldn’t
it feel really wonderful if Geoff came into the café and came up
behind me and put his arms around my shoulders and kissed my jaw,
just under my ear, before saying hello very low and then sitting down
opposite of me (where Joe was) in essence replacing Joe. That’s
what I was thinking. Okay sweetness, must go now. I am the most awful
girlfriend in the universe. Good thing you never went out with me.
lv,
Heather
In the
morning your husband calls
In the
morning your husband calls with a question
about your
son's band practice and you stand naked
looking out
the hotel window explaining about
your other
son's football practice later
and I think
of minor guitar chords
because you
are the type of woman
who thinks
herself merely plain
though men
fall in love with you over
a Victoria's
Secret model any day
with your
sense of humor that can make fun
of Victoria's
Secret models
and our love
of their underwear
though this
is only a minor event isn't it?
one more
night and you'll fly back to Omaha
and I'll fly
back to Kalamazoo
and the rain
that covers you one day
will cover me
the next but I'm not sorry
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