John A. Nieves has poems forthcoming or recently published in journals such as: American Literary Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Alaska Quarterly Review, Mid-American Review, and Puerto del Sol. He won the Indiana Review Poetry Contest and his first book, Curio (2014), won the Elixir Press Annual Poetry Award Judge’s Prize. He is an Assistant Professor of English at Salisbury University. He received his M.A. from University of South Florida and his Ph.D. from the University of Missouri. ---------
Long Slow Simmer (Conjunctio)
This broth is distance
thickened with arrowroot. Boiled
and simmered. In went the fennel to bring
wind and the words that ride it. In
went the garlic to light the old
songs, to play them like crackling radio
on the tongue, through the lips. Hey,
the water was never really that
clean. I make this soup by dirtying
it up some more. And hey, in went carrot
to tell the earth that it can’t keep
everything. In the serrano so we know
the sting of gathering, of transmutation.
Hey, take a sip from this little
spoon. Hold it. Hold it and guess
what’s missing. There is always
something. A little turmeric to mimic
sundown, some thyme to turn
the flavor summer? But remind me
something does not need to be lost
to be missing. Forget bowls. Let’s
eat straight from the pot. Let’s stand
around the stove, all one of us, and argue
how far this brew will take us.
Rummage
She put a price tag on a salt-washed
door, unhinged in the corner. Lamplight
competing with daylight in the antique
dim (a cushion littered with hatpins,
littered with stickers—years inked across
their neon faces). She stood before it
as if she were going to kick it in two, snap
the sturdy face of it wall-wise. Her back
to me, her back to the cash wrap, the open
sign, every non-emergency exit. I held
my breath without any idea why. I held
my hand above my eyes to stop the sagging
light. Sun beat beach red at my heels. A gull
screamed. I turned for a blink and she was
on the sidewalk tearing a yellow dress
from a flimsy rack, ripping it from
its hanger without even the ghost
of malice in her eyes.
Rates
The sun helmeted the grey-
suited folk waiting with all
their hearts for interviews
with people who would forget
them before they even said
hello. You walked into
the shadow at the back of the room and no one
could find you again. Sometimes
in these spaces where all potential
is suspended like a blade
over the tender flesh of some
collective midsection, a person
slips out, but never takes the door,
vanishes like a song from a just-shut-
off radio. The others in the room
continue to sing along for a second:
Wasn’t there someone in that seat? I thought
he said hello when I came in. But eventually
they shrug it off or convince themselves
they imagined you. You with the small brown
bag and shifty green eyes. You who
kept checking your phone like it could
ring you out of line, out of a life of waiting
for someone to tell you what you do
for a living, for someone to tell you
your title. But then, you got up. Left
of the water cooler was a dim spot
one could think in. Others came and went
and your phone was on the seat. No one sat
on it. I took it to turn in to the lost
and found. The battery was dead. The lady
in a salmon coat held out a box for me
to drop it in. Inside were other phones and a few rings.