Miracle's truck comes down the little avenue, Scott Joplin ragtime strewn behind it like pearls, and, yes, you can feel happy with one piece of your heart. Take what's still given: in a room's rich shadow a woman's breasts swinging lightly as she bends. Early now the pearl of dusk dissolves. Late, you sit weighing the evening news, fast-food miracles, ghostly revolutions, the rest of your heart.
Aurelius & Furius, true comrades, whether Catullus penetrates to where in outermost India booms the eastern ocean's wonderful thunder; whether he stops with Arabs or Hyrcani, Parthian bowmen or nomadic Sagae; or goes to Egypt, which the Nile so richly dyes, overflowing; even if he should scale the lofty Alps, or summon to mind the mightiness of Caesar viewing the Gallic Rhine, the dreadful Britons at the world's far end-- you're both prepared to share in my adventures, and any others which the gods may send me. Back to my girl then, carry her this bitter
Matthew Gellman is a queer poet and the author of The Understudy (Four Way Books, 2027) and Beforelight (BOA Editions, 2024). He is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. A PhD candidate at the University of Southern California, Gellman lives in Los Angeles.
Susan Mitchell is the author of Erotikon (HarperCollins, 2000); Rapture (HarperCollins, 1992), a finalist for the 1992 National B
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