Poem Beginning With a Line You Told Me to Save for Another Poem by Josiah Nelson

September 8, 2023
Poem title: Poem Beginning With a Line You Told Me to Save for Another Poem Poet name: Josiah Nelson Poem: What is alive is always a matter of time. For instance, stars. Pale light before dusk. Certain feelings like melancholy, hope, or lust. A flash of sun through a slit in the blinds. Your shadow on the wall, or a hug from behind. A breath through the song of your body. The long autumn day we spent walking the sandy banks of Wanuskewin. The night we stayed out beneath a blanket of stars, or the moment you perched your body over mine and searched for something in my face. The possibility of fingers on skin, or lips as lightning, or any other act of grace. Knowing the precise shape of desire, either like light through a pinprick or a candle in a dark room during a storm. Wounds slow to close or the belief that some gaps within you will ever be filled. Waves at sunrise, or vapor above the pot when we cooked Thanksgiving together. Ash, dust, and sparks flying since the beginning, flickering into flame on walls etched with images of animals, people, fire, or the pictures after pictures, meaning words also written in sand, stone, or the scroll of a mind. Things that tremor, like earth, or legs, or your smile when you’re not sure. Your coy look before you laugh, or your eyes going big when your turn to the moon. Inventions like borders, countries, or conflicts with ones you love. Dark nights of the soul. Any epoch, planet, or human life, or human life. Water, air, any one bit of matter. The sun. Yet I’ve heard other things never end, only echo, how certain numbers dissolve into themselves or reach their fingers toward the edges of infinity. What about galaxies, space, or time itself, or even the very structure of beginnings and ends. What about forever. I mean to ask: what about the shiver you still send up my spine. End of poem. Credits and bio: Copyright © Josiah Nelson Josiah Nelson is an MFA in Writing student and sessional lecturer at the University of Saskatchewan. His work has appeared (or is forthcoming) in Existere, Queen’s Quarterly, Hunger Mountain Review, and the Rumpus. He placed third in Fractured Lit’s Monsters, Mystery, and Mayhem contest and has been nominated for Best of the Net. He lives in Saskatoon.