Loop
for JW
They crashed into each other each time the city launched a program: the vanishing orchestra, the flammable poem, the frozen metaphor. She said, last month I had an abortion. He said, I stumbled past your place on Tuesday night, humming a tune I heard in a dream. She wanted a foil to hype her signature act, someone to holler fuck you! in a doorway, then stomp down three flights of stairs. He wanted to be the well-pitched one, clutching a candle beside a well-marked trail. She said, you really saw me, & that made him feel loved, as if he’d solved a tricky math problem. She said, I’ll catch you next time, probably during the snow drumming. He marched along the rail line, trying to come up with a suitable image for the way he envisioned her. Woman poised in peach tree. Woman wrapped in barbed wire. Woman leaping from tall building with wings made of mica. The soundtrack would require sludgy violins, watercolor synths, drums that punched a hole in the atmosphere. He’d retreat for a week or two, then crawl back to the city’s glare, his adjectives, camera, his balloon art. He’d walk by her apartment, waving to the face that never appeared in the window.
Prelude
for JW
He marched from the east, she leapt from the west. They posed side by side, staring at the framed picture. What is it? he said. The greatest painting since the Mona Lisa she cracked, spinning to behold his profile. The moment dangled like an invitation, though isn’t every moment just that? The quaver before the ring, the flicker before the vision. He felt a nudge at the base of his neck, she felt a twitch in her belly. He was traveling from the Stupor Mountains, looking for a circus in the city. She was returning from a vacation in the sand, still trying to stuff the ocean into her backpack. The painting was by a man who lived his entire life in one room – brusque lines, fluorescent curves, a dash of moonglow. He laughed cautiously then freely. She laughed freely then cautiously. The conductor summoned the riders back to their cars, shouting from a smoky window. He was in his seat, she was in hers, cars & cars between them, the mind is this long, empty galaxy bulging with light.
Polaroid
for JW
The students found the photo creepy, as if a serial killer had snagged it with a hidden camera. Do they know each other, one asked. Why would they vibe like that, another snarled, unless they bumped in some bar or courthouse. The other students snickered, coolly swallowed. He didn’t tell them that he was the man in the photo, his Stratocaster phase, subbing by day, nights in jazz clubs. The woman, someone he met in sweltering July years ago, a coffee car blaring the rails from an Atlantic port toward the Sonoran Desert. She sped from New York, wedging miles between an old story & a new one she was already writing. With a bold, red pen. He could tell that about her from the moment they met, how she’d never scrawl a line or appointment in pencil. Indelible or nothing. They stared at the framed print. It’s a bird, she said. It’s a helicopter, he snipped. It’s the corpse of America nailed to a plywood wall, she finished, & they both laughed. A woman in a black-brimmed hat appeared, like the deus ex machina in some ancient play. You two are fantastic, she said, don’t move. She captured the pose, awkward, eager. Wait, is she smiling, another student asked, leaning forward in his seat. Yeah, he wanted to say, yeah she is. He dodged that tug he wouldn’t shake for days if it grabbed him. I still say they didn’t know each other, the first student insisted, jabbing her index finger toward the screen for added effect. He clicked the next link, let the sharp silence dig— could anyone throw a line into this cold, feral sea.
John Amen was the recipient of the 2021 Jack Grapes Poetry Prize and the 2024 Susan Laughter Myers Fellowship. His poems and prose have appeared recently in Rattle, Prairie Schooner, Poetry Daily, American Literary Review, and Tupelo Quarterly. He founded and was managing editor of Pedestal Magazine 2000-2025. His latest collection, Dark Souvenirs, was released by New York Quarterly Books in 2024.