Walking Home in New Spring *
Today, like that day
in our first April, the sun low,
your hand new on the small
of my back, we were caught
in a torrent of rain. It hit
harder than planned
when we balked at clouds,
ignored their black, the burden
of wet in their bowing bellies.
We ran like we did that day.
A quarter-mile to your house, sprinting
hip-tight, kicking up the wet in swaths
from our heels. That day in April we hung
our clothes to dry in the bath,
let jeans drip a room away, the heaviness
gone by morning in a drain swig our eyes missed.
But today we slogged
arm’s-length, wind searing,
screaming through the space.
You wrung your shorts off the side
of the porch while I longed
to feel water lift from my skin,
for a warmth in new dryness—
for an us we left in the storm.
Picking Corn with Boys
I wanted to give
you a weightlessness
with corn silk in your hands,
the way those leaves slice
dizzying thwacks on your chest
and arms, the whiteness
of young kernels
under newest daylight.
With your fist formed
over my shirt collar
I led you to the center
to be lost in a new
dewed body. Poised
for an ear to shake out
her hair, I tore open
a tight, veined wrap,
and you leapt at the sight
of the something inside.
I picture your face
as you jumped back
through a wall of stalks:
scrunched in maybe
disappointment, disgust,
or fear—nothing
of magic to find
hundreds of mites
crawling blind
in fresh sun, starved
and burrowing deep
in the folds of the leaves.
***
John Mark Brown is a queer poet from Southern Illinois, a senior creative writing student at Eastern Illinois University, and a cardigan enthusiast. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in the Indiana Review (Online), Yellow Chair Review, Indiana Voice Journal, and Rat’s Ass Review, among others. He can be found embarrassing himself on Twitter @johnbrownie13.
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