Dickinson said, “Split
the lark and you’ll find
the music.” I’ve tried with men,
but they’re denser than hell.
Osmium, platinum, gold,
these men are solid;
the kind of thing that’s easy
to skip across a lake,
a little fun until they sink.
These men are on gag order, petrified
that what escapes beak might be more
than a melody. Can they not try
for me and Miss Wild Nights?
I have split a few.
I’m a natural at creating fractures.
I must enjoy coming back
when they’re laid out flat, when
they’re too cold to sing.
I will remember their rawest
song as they play possum. I shed
tears over their reticence. My hands
reach to warm another.
I’m just asking for music.
I’m just asking to listen.
JOHN MUELLNER is an LGBTQ writer from St. Paul, MN. He earned his MFA from New York University where he was a Departmental Poetry Fellow. A Pushcart nominee, his work can be read in Denver Quarterly, Emerson Review, Sixth Finch, Court Green, and elsewhere. Currently, he’s a Voertman-Ardoin Fellow at the University of North Texas where he’s working on his Ph.D.
MELISSA WILLIS paints and writes to process her own struggles with the fractured communication that comes from loving people who have autism, heroin addiction and schizophrenia. She earned her B.A. at the U.C.L.A. School of Fine Art in 1991, and continues to draw and collage daily.
