That train gone now sorry
(i) can’t call self significant other on hold holding phone in vacant ecstasy or all too aware of standing too close so trapped in skin so could argue or ignore.
(ii) can’t call feelings back disembarking unquietly arriving self runs out of fills with wanting makes crazy lips left wanting the fruited air of so could argue or ignore.
(iii) can’t call now both of us at same time in kitchen and in river flowing north dreaming some animal not explained all the time still slow-burning begin dinner late under blanket of ash so what could argue or ignore.
(iv) can’t talk now can’t decide if is it too late to text brain is in a place asleep snuggled quietly losing it then without warning or holding on so who doesn’t like to swim in heavy river swollen so could argue or ignore.
(v) so poem of none love for a self can’t sleep without rhythm of snoring-lite meanwhile empty can go to voice-mail without exactly saying too long to message to convey tonight.
Lee Johnson is a retired Special Education teacher and current student in the M.F.A. poetry program at Columbia College Chicago. He and his family live in the suburbs of Chicago. He is first runner-up for this year’s Eileen Lannan Poetry Contest sponsored by the Academy of American Poets. His poems in the past have appeared in Chrysalis, while an undergraduate at the U of Michigan’s Residential College.