Nick Visconti

Cynosure

This ash tree
cements the garden as

a concrete thing, a half-
remembrance that will persist

through perfect drought.
Blue and yellow

clasp hands in my head,
around a missed pill. I can’t look

at pictures long enough
to reconcile—was he really

all that beautiful and dearly
loved? This alone can’t hold

all the blood I must resemble.
I compost your last orange rind,

whorls imperceptibly embedded
in the pith: tell no one

about this. The dog glitching
in a loop for his tail,

one part nipping another
in a mad bid to know himself.

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Nick Visconti is a writer living in Brooklyn with another artist and a cat. He currently studies creative writing at Columbia University.