We snapped photos
on the meadow of your family land
against mountains and maple.
Deafening quiet. You laughed
when I asked how much
of the land was yours.
In the one room sugar shack,
we warmed ourselves by the wood
stove, read aloud from The Book
of Scientific Experiments. We learned
thirty thousand satellites clutter
our galaxy—gather voices. We
crunched green Life Savers between
our teeth to make sparks in the dark.
The aurora borealis flashed green.
Your breasts throbbing. Hot
water bottle shoved down the front
of your jeans. You dipped a finger
into a jar of olives. I crave salt,
you groaned. It’s blood loss.
Is it like blue balls? I joked.
Definitely not, you smirked.
You’re such a dick.
We dropped acid the next morning,
counted ice crystals, tagging shades
of blue. The clear sky burned azure
winter. We visited your father’s grave
leaping like deer—on snowshoes—
slow walking astronauts, strolling
in craters, yawning moon mouths.
Two sets of prints. No one
belongs to anyone.
We drove back to the city, windows
rolled down—snowshoes stacked
in the hatchback—through the hills,
past rows of bare orchards. I imagined
the fields reeked of breakfast—cinnamon
on carved apple. Home, you receded.
I cured loneliness with a disco ball
that expanded my bedroom—
fracturing light. I dropped
acid. You phoned, confessed
you married in Vegas after just
a month, moved with him to Berlin.
You were furious I was worried
accused me of not believing in love—
Straight girl. Queer
boy, I sent you gifts as apology.
You reported everything arrived broken
the framed photo of us in the meadow,
the magnifying glass, the perfume,
the poem you argued was opaque.
Too delicate to be moved.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 25, Issue 5.
Gordon Taylor (he/him) is a queer poet who walks an ever-swaying wire of technology, health care and poetry. A 2022 Pushcart Prize nominee, his poems have appeared in or are forthcoming in Narrative, Rattle Poet’s Respond, Event, Grain, Banshee and Pangyrus. Taylor was the winner of the 2022 Toronto Arts & Letters Club Foundation Poetry Award and was a finalist in Narratives’s 14th Annual Poetry Contest.
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