Autobiography of the Chorus in Fall

I’m going to plant various trees and shrubs so that in ten years
they will bloom and spell out WTF in the side yard,
like we’re at Disneyland and I’m twelve
and not wanting the hat but kind of still wanting the hat.
I know how beautiful the world is. Look. There it is.
I want to cry. Like “crying it out.” Like the body crying is part
of the system, and the crying body shifts
as one vote shifts. They’ve closed the bridges into
and out of the city. I’m wearing a new shirt. BE HAPPY,
it says. It’s why I bought it. I’m trying to articulate
how fragile I’ve become. Some deserter’s dream
of a secret light. Or Ptolemy’s geocentric solar system
is an elegant construction, like all beautiful and wrong ideas.
It’s October already. We’re draped in a fine gauze.

*

I’m still negotiating terms. This is going to take a while.
And how it was, and the parts of it we weren’t noticing,
and how we were there, used to it, and forgetting
other things. A lot of universe stuff is crashing through me
as I’m sitting here. Maybe that’s why I got
this sudden pain in my right eye. Accent walls
are out this season. Wallpaper is in.
A hurricane develops in the Gulf of Mexico.
I do a lot of things knowing they won’t do me any good.
That time in LA, for instance. It wasn’t a betrayal
or anything. In fact, I don’t remember anything about it.
LA, what a delightful city. You have to be somewhere, right?
And do things? You can open every door and leave it
open. Every window. Get a taste of the future.

John Gallaher’s next book of poetry is Radio Good Luck (Four Way Books, 2028). Gallaher lives in northwest Missouri and co-edits the Laurel Review.