I used to write wishes on paper airplanes
each hurricane is a car thief
riding by moonlight
to open space measured by
illusory waves that leave
random debris for us
to throw at one another
to stone ourselves with pet rocks
because it’s easier to believe a story
the less true it sounds
my hand on your thigh
you smile as if nothing happened
but when our conversation shifts
to music theater last night’s rain
you pretend to look out the window
surprised that I didn’t see the fish
in the ship’s wake
and you want to know why
the same questions return now and then
like those little facts that tug on the end
of a line
so that the whole world
pirouettes rolls shatters
near girders to one thousand
miles of asphalt highway
impaired by excessive anxiety
scream about how it all
was just a misunderstanding
to avoid what remains
of your bite marks
on both my neck
and imaginationJohn Casquarelli is an English professor at Boricua College in New York. He received his M.F.A. in the Creative Writing program at Long Island University. He was awarded the 2010 Esther Hyneman Award for poetry. His work has appeared in several publications including Pyrokinection, Downtown Brooklyn, Kinship of Rivers, By The Overpass, The Mind[less] Muse, Brooklyn Paramount, Pulp, The International Rebecca West Society, The Poetry Project Blog, and Sun’s Skeleton. His first full-length book, On Equilibrium of Song, was published by Overpass Books (2011).