Conversations with My Aunt
by Brett Shaw
That time of day when streets exist
only in the grace of angles shadow allows—
space for running;
space for hiding. I can remember
moments I hung between that choice
as a child. Sometimes now
in discussions of sex
someone will ask me how
the clinical they can take it.
Take the pain. I know
pain is a pattern contrary
to expectation—
less bright—though,
at moments, as blinding
as I’ve wished—more
the sensation of water rising
as I stand in (move
further into) it. Snow
melt—the entering of—
all acceptance.
Nothing sudden but the blue
glow the body takes.
And if we lie down in it, hours
with it over our head?
That, too, I’ll accept.
only in the grace of angles shadow allows—
space for running;
space for hiding. I can remember
moments I hung between that choice
as a child. Sometimes now
in discussions of sex
someone will ask me how
the clinical they can take it.
Take the pain. I know
pain is a pattern contrary
to expectation—
less bright—though,
at moments, as blinding
as I’ve wished—more
the sensation of water rising
as I stand in (move
further into) it. Snow
melt—the entering of—
all acceptance.
Nothing sudden but the blue
glow the body takes.
And if we lie down in it, hours
with it over our head?
That, too, I’ll accept.
Brett Shaw is a poet and educator living in Houston. Recent work appears or is forthcoming in Colorado Review, Southern Humanities Review, BOAAT, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA from the University of Alabama.