B.J. Love
—
HI MY HANDS ARE COLD HAVE YOU FELT IT YET?
Have you felt much of anything lately? I feel
perhaps too much, so much that my heart
regularly skips a beat, skips a beat like a kid
skips a test question hoping to come back
to it later. This does not help my already poor
circulation. Look at all my advertisers
jumping ship. I can no longer promise
steady returns. I can no longer promise
any returns at all. I’ve lived in Texas
for a long time and it breaks my heart. Is
breaking my heart. A broken heart is
the only sure-fire way to know someone
is from Texas. It’s a goddamn regional
delicacy, you should see how proud
we all are. 28 million people cradling
their delicate hearts between their air-filled
lungs knowing that every night will end
the same; the whole family nestled around
the dining room table passing a bottle
of glue over every heart-shard laid in front
of them. “Someday, we will look back
on this and laugh” says the father looking
over the ventricular distribution of his
families’ hearts with growing concern.
There’s been talk that concern is all that
grows here anymore. It was on the front
page of the paper last week when I peeked
to see what the temperature was going
to be today. It’s cold. My hands are cold.
Have you felt it yet? I need something
with feeling. I heard a lady in line
at the grocery store talking about how
important feeling is when piecing
our hearts back together. The feeling
she said, looking right at me, is everything.
Roy Bentley's poems have been widely published over the years, notably in Crazyhorse, Shenandoah, Rattle, The Southern Review and Prairie Schooner. He is the recipient of a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and fellowships from the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs and the Ohio Arts Council. His fifth book, Walking with Eve in the Loved City, was a finalist for the Miller Williams Poetry Prize. A new collection, American Loneliness, is available from Lost Horse Press in Sandpoint, Idaho.
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