Keep your shadow to yourself. The sun does
enough to blind. We have already registered
for your permission to walk list, for your permission

 

to breathe list, for your potentially dangerous
smile list. You cannot keep us here, pressed
to the waterwheel, what we need constantly

 

moving past us. You cannot spread us evenly

across your toast this morning, no matter
what you are toasting. You cannot add us

 

to your collection of closed eyes in your bedroom
drawers. We have already registered our vinegar,

something acrid to spoil your milk feast, your bland

 

bastard hearts. Your hiding isn’t hiding. We know
what robes are for. You aren’t invisible just
because you haven’t yet lit the torches.

 

 

---

 

 

JOHN A. NIEVES has poems forthcoming or recently published in journals such as: Hopkins  Review, Iowa Review, American Poetry Review, 32 Poems and Southern Review. A 2024 Pushcart Prize winner, he also won the Indiana Review Poetry Contest and his first book, Curio, won the Elixir Press Annual Poetry Award Judge’s Prize. He is associate professor of English at Salisbury University and an editor of The Shore Poetry.

 

The art that appears alongside this piece is by GRANT RAUN.