Christopher Citro

The way you want it is—
you hope to be flying
then realize you are flying.
I’ve eaten blackberries
from your hand where
they’re warm from July
and your hand. I wonder
when I wake in morning—
am I afraid as usual or
do I feel nothing. I try
to keep myself safe as
I begin to move about.
Were my knees always
numb on the outside
like that. Will I recognize
when my brain contracts,
desiccates like nut meat
turning sour. Guess what—
it’s begun to rain. You’ve
been getting wet—and
you’ve been crying a little—
but the light moving across
the distant fields. The light
riding the distant fields.

Christopher Citro is the author of The Maintenance of the Shimmy-Shammy (Steel Toe Books, 2015). He won the 2015 Poetry Competition at Columbia Journal, and his recent and upcoming publications include poetry in The Missouri Review, Prairie Schooner, Ploughshares, Best New Poets, Crazyhorse, Poetry Northwest, and Hayden’s Ferry Review, and creative nonfiction in Boulevard and Colorado Review. Christopher received his MFA from Indiana University and lives in Syracuse, NY.