by Russell Jaffe
_
Now look:
everyone took turns to talk, there are black braches, the birch bark tears quickly
a______like an envelope
It isn’t a lying, shirtless night, and there aren’t crickets
it’s cold
the surf melodies a scatter in leaves
a_____dead ladybugs salt the sand. There’s sand in my dinner and the salt tastes like a dead ocean. _
I love: I have loved, I am in love now. I am over here, I am distant in love
something in an overhanging cover of dead branches told us that’s ok
a_____somebody built a lighthouse that a robot runs now,
a_____and there was a sign driven wet into the sand that said KEEP OUT
but we came in the wrong way from behind
a_____and from a science perspective, from a rational perspective, from a quiet perspective
there were so many ways to enter
a_____a_____how could we have seen the sign?
a_____And why was there a shed for firewood in a forest of downed, dry trees
dry in the cold, dry, dry crisply hanging in branches on the ground over the damp undergrowth
a_____firewood cold is as useless as smoke
a_____smoke, smoke decidedly goes up and up from our surrounding figures like a secret helicopter, our firewood smoke
into trees, how I wanted to capture that flow but I only have time for another beer,
So, what I gather:
We have marshmallows, fire and
a_____a seat
a_____something other than
Russell Jaffe teaches English at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, IA and holds an MFA in poetry from Columbia College in Chicago. His poems have appeared in Shampoo, MiPOesias, The Portland Review, Spooky Boyfriend, Writer’s Bloc, and others. Additionally, he writes a hot sauce review blog called Good Hurts.
