Jude, No One is Really Beautiful

Christopher Nickelson
 

You, momma, you said the pages make love
to the reader. The words find their own way home.

Charlie says, be open to the metaphor maybe you
will find the verbal icon. I’m sorry now. But all lovers

believe they are inventing love. I believe Rick James
plays the flugelhorn in all my dreams, transforms

into a margay, battered broken. With words, I
do; the lovers find themselves in an orchard, rich with

fruit trees. How can the prophet sit near the apple
tree with neither fruit nor leaf. Look closer for a moment:

the verb is used a lot. I have but one heart. The lover
and the beloved are considered stereotypical outside of Los Angeles.

Don’t choose such a curious verb. She stills get the feeling
George wants to change his “and” to a “but”, but it’s always

Brad and Suzy. Never Brad, but Suzy. One more blind spot from
which you see more than is literally there. Think how you feel.

The activity is delightful, but also a pain. There is no exact
correspondence between the rootless plant and a dying Adonis.

Something is missing from the love affair and
life is missing from the garden.


Christopher Nickelson is a writer and teacher living in Brooklyn, NY. He attended Howard University and The New School.