by AJ Bergmann
“We got married in a fever.”
– Johnny Cash and June Carter, “Jackson”
No fantasy possesses the same
simple elegance as elsewhere.
I part my hair different ways
despite my plans to go nowhere,
see no one but myself
in darkened windows, going
through the motions for going out
in some city I’ve never seen.
Vegas I’ve sampled, but Houston,
maybe. A warm place where
I’d pass my time in freckles, never
fretting for lack of friends,
never forgetting nor parting from
the satisfactory spice of home-grown
peppers, kisses peppering
the back of my neck, eaves-shade
on my back deck in early evening.
Atlanta, Jackson––at least a taste
of a garden and a table at which
my iced tea glass would sit and sweat
like a lover under a heated glance.
AJ Bergmann is a writer, educator, and scientist from the San Francisco Bay Area. Their poetry has appeared in The Madison Review, Black Warrior Review, Mantis, and other publications.
Hawaii Pacific Review 