Matthew Rotando



Restive Nocturne Two


I had your favorite music playing while I twisted her. It was the best. She was in love with me and I was in love with the you in her. And none of us was actually there. 

It was the perfect seance. Cherubs crushed their faces against her window—trying to get out. It’s been years and I can only write about it now. Because I am in time, but not of it. 

And time recalls me, works me back to those cracking moments with little bruises and short breaths. Eyes were on me and I didn’t know how to do spring in autumn. It was okay to be alive, but not okay to want. In this nocturne, I’m counting the faces of my former selves like beads on a rosary. 

Your arms were long and I was in the rain. We turned wishes into earthquakes, chuckling away while the world fell.

 


The Thief


A thief sits in a landscape he stole even though it was already his. He is throwing away everything of value. The sunset. Birds. Wind on the water. This has to be done to make room for the beginning. He throws out ownership and the myth of things. He throws away language and the calliope of symbols. He throws away plastic. Cantaloupes and cardboard and air. He lets his own mouth do the breathing for once.

 

Also by Matthew Rotando: "The Bath of Time," "Sleeping Hot," "Calamities"

 
Matthew Rotando

Matthew Rotando's poems have appeared in various
journals, including Under a Warm Green Linden, Matador, Brine, Fact-Simile, and most recently Everything in Aspic. His first and second poetry books (The Comeback's Exoskeleton, 2008, and Hail, 2020) are published by Upset Press, Brooklyn. He is a Fulbright Fellow and holds degrees from Duke University, Brooklyn College, and the University of Arizona. He is a professor of English Literature and Creative Writing at SUNY Nassau. He is currently living in Dakar, Senegal.

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