Fall 2013, Volume 15

Poetry by Colin Dodds

An Hour after Saying “I Love You”

My lips chapped from kissing
and my hair knotted like the dry grass by the ocean,
I rolled into the city.

Uncoerced, I had said the words.
It felt like every bad turn in the last 30 years
was a blessing or a prerequisite to one.

We had cosmic sex
in a closed national park
under the waxing moon.

The rocks around us jutted into the moon-ruled sky,
the sea crashed into the rocks
and the mountains loomed in approval.

Dizzy from the mountains, the city is welcome.
Its buffering avalanche of trivia
and its petty sensuality are welcome.

The bar looks different.
The bartendress, dressed shiny and tight,
does not decide life and death tonight.

You didn’t notice when I drove too fast on the cliffs.
And when my thoughts drifted to imaginary towns
filled with fetus–wizards, you laughed.

You told me not to go down
to play with the elephant seals.
You pulled at me in the quiet.

 

 

 

BIO: Colin Dodds grew up in Massachusetts and completed his education in New York City. He’s the author of several novels, including The Last Bad Job, which the late Norman Mailer touted as showing “something that very few writers have; a species of inner talent that owes very little to other people.” Dodds’ screenplay, Refreshment – A Tragedy, was named a semi-finalist in 2010 American Zoetrope Contest. His poetry has appeared in more than sixty publications, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife Samantha.