Field

The one where we met; the one sodden with feldspar
   & stale perfume, an unblackening mercy of love—
                       that’s where I find you, even now.
            You, holding your breath in the baubles
                of inky smut, still taunt me with promise:
         We’ll find our way out, one day or another.
       I nod numb to it, wanting a place
           for the both of us to lie, lay my head
      across your lap like children playing
              a game where memory drifts.
      Bladegrass, lakewater, cottonmouth.
        Awnings unmade of summer’s weeds,
everywhere a familiar comfort spying its own
                   body. There is no safety until time
          measures its secrets, browns in arrival.
                     My aching, yours—I still lie
          here to find what we never become;
           now I say whatever lets that self-
               horizon hang on a little while longer.
   Innocence makes a beast of everything—
               even what it refuses to touch.

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Wes Matthews is poet and essayist from the westside of Detroit whose work has appeared in 68to05, Bellevue, Gulf Coast, Muzzle, Beloit, and elsewhere. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2023 with a degree in anthropology and religious studies. He is currently working on a Masters of Theological Studies (MTS) degree at Harvard Divinity School.