QUAERENS DOMUM

He is slicing a tomato when the call comes in. His hands juicy-slick against the receiver holding the words “your father.” Meander suggested a god attends each of us from the moment of birth and back at the cutting board he wonders which god is attending him. This is the beginning of dread. This is the first step backwards and a greasy one at that. He slip-slid his way north to sense freedom but the world is fitted together by a seduction of opposites and who but the demons can resist?

Driving south of the border between what was and what is what he is—hope resides in red clover and the decimals between each pine. Maybe the heat isn’t as wet as it once was. Maybe the place they called paradise is too but he never found love beside the pinball machine or in a backseat.

Photography Credit: Scott Shaw

Poem: Katch Campbell

APART

One thousand five hundred and fifty-eight soldiers lost a limb in the Mid-East conflicts. How we determine what is pain. How our outside is less hidden. When Descartes suggested all sensation is generated inside one’s brain did he know of Spencer’s limbs? They ache when he thinks of her. Stuck standing on the wrong side of this window he wonders if her needs are still the same. Does she write each week’s list on the softer part of someone’s wrist? Does she still use the tablet he left beside the fridge? He doesn’t want to remember what he’s been told he should forget. So inside against these boxes he waits for her to pass.

photography credit: Scott Shaw scottshawphotography.com

Poem: Katch Campbell

Virgin Wood

Why is it that every man sees what I cannot politely name here? When I say love I mean humanity and the sound the moon craves from the sea. When you say love you mean a burrito and afternoon sex. Walking in these woods you stop to photograph a tree hollow and I realize we are on two separate paths. The terms for a woman’s body are not nearly as rich as the hummus we now tread. I’m confused by opposites at play. Your quest for next is incessant–Last night enraptured and today barely engaged. If nothing is more permanent than the constellation of these spores, scattered upon mossy wood, than why do I bother? Let this poem be filled with hope and offer some direction. I want you to embrace everything. By everything I mean us.

photo credit: Scott Shaw

Poem: Katch Campbell

Eleven and Popeye’s

When he is fifteen he will fall in love for the first time. She walks into his life likea raspberry slushy, all fizz and fickle; a bird of paradise hopping. Her energy is distracting him in math class and his mother will not stand for less than 100%. What to do with all those brains? Pascal made a wager won’t you? She wears her hair like a nest of spun black sugar and he believes it smells of apples. If only he could know for certain. What is certain are these small sips. What is certain is that he doesn’t know anything yet of the hull of a woman’s hip or the energy produced by an arched eyebrow. Who will teach and what will they say? Is it better to wait or to rush into love? The fearful remain safe but never independently order from the full menu. But today is the game and these biscuits.

photography credit: Scott Shaw

poem: katch campbell