I.
His legs are twined
with the branch
below him as
if they were
just another knot
taught to him
by his father
when he was
a young boy
II.
I know a girl
who wears innocence
like a sundress,
setting each night
over her ankles
and I know
that there is a boy
with kerosene
in his eyes
that she turns to
and sometimes
I know the boy
and sometimes
that boy is me
III.
We perched
the same branch
like two birds
huddling close
in the depths of winter,
for the music.
Swear, for the music.
Beautiful falsetto.
IV.
My heart is tinder
and the quiet man
that built his home there
this past winter
paces slowly
and with a limp
His footsteps
fall on dry
sticks and paper
the sound echoing
off of my ribcage amphitheater
and from far away
I’m sure it sounds
like a heartbeat
V.
Old age
just the wisps of
cinder gray above
my head
and in my heart,
trying to remember
themselves auburn
before the fire
VI.
The cartographer stumbles
past slowly:
his legs stiff,
heels clicking
with the ground
like the strikes of a
drafting compass;
and with his every step
earth measures him back.
VII.
I like to practice dying.
Sometimes I lay
down and carve tree trunks, my name scratched six
feet above my head
and admired
by the procession ants
that pause one
by one to
pay their respects
I like to walk
through the forest
looking at the names
that my mother thought about giving me
but didn’t
and wonder if they
are practicing too
VIII.
The gardener cups his thumb on the head of his hose.
When the sun is out
he works alone,
watering the seeds
that his son will
buy one day
from a florist near
8th street and
lay over his grave
IX.
Nothing smells
more like beauty
than rain
on asphalt
Nothing looks so good
as the sun
shining through pollution
At 6 p.m.
Nothing sounds so pretty
as horse hair
and pernambuco
pulled back and forth
in a sea of G major, maple, spruce, and metal strings
as we were the currents
that held them in their sway
by Simon Rhee
Simon Rhee has been published in Poetry Quarterly, Stoneboat Journal, Do Not Look at the Sun, Mania Magazine, Visions with Voices, Red Ochre Lit Mini Chapbook, Line Zero Poetry Finalist, and Mary Ballad Poetry Prize Finalist.
