Two Poems by Andi Myles

Recollection and Intersection

Recollection

He asked me to tell him something real
so I pulled back the sky
 
to reveal the lights behind the night,
the drywall and pinholed cardboard, 
 
the painted vistas of places
he always meant to see up close
 
like the alley behind his yard.
Under the sequined sea floor 

I showed him the metal box filled
with dreams sent to the aspiring, lifetimes
 
built from discarded Legos. 
Next to the only real tree in the world
 
I straddled him and ran my tongue
across his skin, breathed memory softly
 
into the spaces between his fingers,
felt his body remember 
 
regret tastes like burned matchsticks.
Barefoot in the grass I called
 
to the last of the fireflies—
told him, we were all made for you.

Photo by Conrad Ziebland

Intersection

There are things 

I know are true, 

but I don’t believe, 

like the moon 

affects the tides 

or time moves 

slower the 

faster you run. 

There are things 

I know are untrue, 

but I believe, 

like the last of the

light of the eighth

brightest star

began its journey 

to us the moment 

your craving propelled 

me to the floor.

That it was satiation,

propitiation,

an offering to 

inverse spirits,

sine and cosine,

meeting once

a lifetime, one

reaching up—

the other down.

About the Poet: Andi Myles is a Washington DC–area science writer by day, poet in the in between times. Her favorite space is the fine line between essay and poetry. Her work has appeared in Longleaf Review, Tahoma Literary Review, and Brink Literary Journal, among others. You can find her at www.andimyles.com.