In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • On Our 6th Anniversary
  • Romus Simpson (bio)

it was nothing i have saidor have donenot a fine point of diplomacy missed the ritual banteror the gulf between the cultures we merged in matrimonynot the shape of my thighsthe casual invitation of my bellyor the midnights your skin sang calypsoand you could not turn into me because somewoman downtown refused younot the long november with its mathematics of falling leaves andhemispheres of late starsthe hunger between them and the earth

not the talk left on the table and in the hallsand the rooms flowering beautiful cordial shadowsindifferent morning rising in the storm everywherenor the silence where the seed heart floats in a dark currentaway from birth and possibilitythat makes me remember my parentsmakes me watch you asleep alone and unclaimedin a tropical dark blue continent sailinglost in some other sister’s lush dream eyewho bears you children and sends them running to greet youlike my father who became immaculatein being a machine at goodyear and moved each dayclick by click tire by tire alarm by alarm toward a great tolling deathahem by ahem until the lungs were a thick dry tongueand left unkissed into the wide cold morning eternity

it was not the highlights in my hairchanging evening in my eyesuncounted and not aliverain from my sky and eyes on easter islandtongue touch to no onethe world a placid soundless oceanand no map to find me in all this blue [End Page 247] and it is not the uncertainty of the morningswhen you walk out the door unaskedand you become my neighbor who works all weekthen fishes on weekends and sleeps earlyand i become his wife who has come to love her gardenbecause her home does not grow [End Page 248]

Romus Simpson

Romus Simpson, who attended Long Beach State University, has received such prizes and honors as the Sarah Hay Henderson Prize and the Palabara Prize, as well as others. He has published poems in Voices of Liemert Park Anthology, Black Arts Quarterly (Stanford University), The Southern California Anthology, Caffeine Magazine, as well as other periodicals and anthologies.

...

pdf

Share