JOHN ESTES

Spare Myths

 
It comes back to me
always at precisely the wrong occasions
the time doing wind sprints
up a hill and I quit
half way up because I forgot why I’d started

I wonder how I’ll feel this summer
when I return to that hill years after the fact
and now bad hips keep me
from running at all
it’s true how far a little of some things go
there’s a small prayer chapel
those woods sponsor
which few if any ever visit

once I had a secret lover who I’d meet
after work and we’d often go
to this reservoir or that boat dock
and watch the sun set
I remember swearing to myself I’d never miss
a sunset whenever it would open me
up or coincide beautifully
with say a murmuration of cow birds
or a touch of the hand
at just such a critical transition
and even though I’ve failed
miserably to even approach fulfilling that vow
I remain sensitive to shifts in light
throughout the day that remind
me I’m capable of love

we are rightly awed by flocking behaviors
even from here I see two people
come together and kiss
before walking on together like joined atoms
we hardly care what size we are
I’m so much larger than so many things
we’re so fragile and the stakes
are so high for us it’s not worth the wonder
we’d have to expend to be happy
I keep my dream catcher
far away from the bed so as to let one
gift of my life at least
have a fighting chance for escape



195  The Paris-American

John Estes directs the creative writing program at Malone University in Canton, Ohio and is on the faculty of Ashland University’s Low-Residency MFA. He is author of Kingdom Come (C&R Press, 2011) and two chapbooks: Breakfast with Blake at the Laocoön (Finishing Line Press, 2007) and Swerve, which won a 2008 National Chapbook Fellowship from the Poetry Society of America. Find more work at johnestes.org. 

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