The Day John Lennon Died
We spent the afternoon making love
on Flannery O’Connor’s bed,
ambling through the spring-fed pond
in the upstairs history of the world,
the crutches leaning on the bookcase
in the shadows of the green and purple hat,
and both of us wearing all our clothes
Somehow we managed to steer clear
of that forbidden providence,
except the brief moment I passed my shoe
to you across the table
and our thumbs paused,
touching,
as if to understand the thirty years
we would not let ourselves transcend
John Lennon might have written in a song,
had he lived,
for Flannery,
had she,
that speed can trip a cautious pony,
that water feels fast but rises slow,
that the gatekeeper, even if you lose the key,
will still grant entry to the willing
And Flannery, for John, might have written
a cathedral for squandered love
where on your knees
you can lose yourself on the river
in order to find yourself,
no matter how fast the water’s rising,
in the mystery of another mind
Imagine
John and Flannery,
not Yoko,
standing naked on that cover
holding hands,
watching
as our uncloaked bodies
rise from the shadows of
the green and purple hat
to converge
Bio
I have graduate degrees in linguistics and creative writing from the University of Texas at Austin and have been a Working Scholar at Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. I published one story in Beloit Fiction Journal, and, after life’s uncooperative interventions, am now just setting out to publish my work.