JT Welsch
Reverse Aubade
Next you’ll be saying the effect
of rain-flow on a house is our own
fluidity, those unheard percolations.
But the old gods weren’t stupid.
If my body’s a temple or whatever,
no light at the door reaches the relics.
The new shit makes martyrs of us all.
At the alarm, as your struthious
lashes kick in sleep, swatting in vain
at another girl’s name on my arm,
it’s all I can do not to reach out
for the nail-scissors and bring you
back among mortals, where no one
really wants to hear about your dream.
When you crawled in from another
graveyard at the coalface and mentioned
Bin Laden died, the name rang a bell,
but I couldn’t think what. I assumed
you’d take care of it. If you died,
I’d annoy everybody with my grief.
You’d be like the love of my life.
JT Welsch lectures in creative writing and literature at York St John University. His poems have appeared in Boston Review, Stand, Manchester Review, Cake, and the pamphlets, Orchids (Salt 2010), Orchestra & Chorus (Holdfire 2012), and Waterloo (Like This 2012).