Scuttle
       

Don't drink the gnat. It plants itself
in your waterglass like celery seed

gone sweaty in the wet earth. Don't
leave the porch light open. It will call

in all the things that want to eat
what you eat, that want to taste even

you here in the wishful darkness.
Look, the hedge ends just outside

our view to the southeast, much
like the mountains, much like youth

all crumbled up in shadow and shifting.
Don't sing to it. Save your whistle

for the hard nail, for the cider fast-poured
into the whiskey, ice clinking in the old

fashioned. Remember when blood was
what we called everything close by.

Remember how everything close by
fit in the balsam breeze. Say something,

please, from the swing we used to creak
in when the night owls had their way

with our sleep. Say something throaty,
something rhythmic that refuses to rhyme.

Don't promise the skyline. Don't promise
the headlights winding down the drive. There

will never be a seat left for either of us
we didn't carve ourselves.

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Copyright © 2019 John A. Nieves All rights reserved
from The Southern Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission