Last night, I tried sleeping on your side of the bed; I dreamt of spring
water rushing toward Mont-St.-Michel, angel armies surrounding its dome.
Minus swords, they bore golden arrows, the color of pollen drawn from Easter lilies.
I woke to crimson October and impending wings, folded and extended:
no angels, but woodpeckers circling upper limbs, their final tap-tap-tap
tapering off; Canadian geese, guided toward ponds and the emptiness
of cornfields, exchanging positions: lead, follow, rest.
For you it is all rest, and I don’t want to follow, learn more.
Annunciations, good news seem silenced even on days dedicated to Gabriel.
Instead, I seek meaning in other forms of flight: jet trails, pointing east,
diffusing like bruises from centers outward.
Such signs I can read (fly away), and this story I can guess:
me bearing a boombox, St. Matthew’s Passion, a Ball jar of tulips;
you taught me pennies can push the red petals—
white-tipped, feathered, out of season—to open above the blue walls,
but I’ll keep my coins, so petals align at dusk. Of varying heights,
they’ll become heightened plot points, false climaxes, an EKG rising and falling.
The resolution? Wounds, wales, stigmata. A flat line pointing to the right.
CJ Giroux is a member of the English Department at Saginaw Valley State University and is on the staff of Dunes Review. His newest chapbook is Sheltered in Place (Finishing Line Press), and his poetry has recently been featured in Thimble Literary Magazine, Superpresent, Third Wednesday, and Talking River Review.