Chris McCann

Pulling a Thread

When your head hurts
say your head hurts. Or say
nothing. I was saving 

those oranges you ate
to distract you
from the eclipse 

outside our building.
I ride the elevator up
and down to forget 

gravity, while you lie
about where
you’ve been. A dog 

stays silent so no one
knows when the mail has come.
It’s time for a drink 

and so I watch the metals
forged from the sun one
by one fall to the river 

and sink. There are only five
letters in the word you
can’t remember and only 

one of them is a vowel.
On the couch, it is
nighttime and so we lie 

awake, the stars burning
holes in our pockets
the dreams painful, 

real, as quiet
as blue as they ever
have been or will.

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Chris McCann's work has been published in Moss, The Pedestal Magazine, SmokeLong Quarterly, Noctua Review and Salt Hill Journal. He lives on Bainbridge Island in Washington.