Connor
by Matthew Gellman
Winter was not like the dream
I’d had. No women’s
clothes. No moonlet rain.
When I wanted to get under
your blue and gold bedsheets,
I didn’t. Your father was awake.
I pretended not to hear him
pacing the hall like he always did,
or the morning news blurring
from one state to another.
We dressed, grabbed sleds
and went to the hill.
The valley breathed under snow.
The horses were spread
like ink on a page. One,
fenced in, kicked up his head
and stomped, disturbing
the stillness that kept him.
When we live with silence,
a little violence inhabits us.
I laughed as you pushed me down.
I’d had. No women’s
clothes. No moonlet rain.
When I wanted to get under
your blue and gold bedsheets,
I didn’t. Your father was awake.
I pretended not to hear him
pacing the hall like he always did,
or the morning news blurring
from one state to another.
We dressed, grabbed sleds
and went to the hill.
The valley breathed under snow.
The horses were spread
like ink on a page. One,
fenced in, kicked up his head
and stomped, disturbing
the stillness that kept him.
When we live with silence,
a little violence inhabits us.
I laughed as you pushed me down.
Matthew Gellman's poems are featured or forthcoming in Thrush, The Journal, The Adroit Journal, Word Riot, H.O.W. Journal, DIALOGIST and elsewhere. He is the recipient of an Academy of American Poets prize and a Pushcart Prize nominee. Currently, Matthew lives in New York, where he edits Lambda Literary's Poetry Spotlight and is an MFA candidate at Columbia University.
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Fall 2016, Issue 19
Fall 2016, Issue 19