Christopher Nelson

Before Everything

 

we went
onto the night roof
off limits
this was before
everything
was camera-ed
and alarmed
smoked a joint
shared a tepid beer
both of us
stinking of summer
and being
young talked
about jumping
how you’d wave
to all the lonely
people on
their balconies
as you fell
as I fly you corrected
and I was
overcome
with sadness
and held you and you
laughed and said
I’m only fucking
with you, but
to be clear, I’m
fucking Alex
and pulled away
and in that moment
I did
almost jump
but thought the bright
awnings of the
streetside shops
might break
my fall like
in the comics
and your nipples
were hard
from evening chill
and I still loved
my life
as I do
and as I will
for no reason
but tenacity
tender as a vine

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Christopher Nelson is the author of Blood Aria (University of Wisconsin Press, 2021) and five chapbooks, including Blue House, winner of a Poetry Society of America Fellowship. The recipient of the 2023–24 Amy Lowell Traveling Scholarship, he is the founding editor of Green Linden Press, a nonprofit publisher dedicated to poetic excellence and reforestation. He has edited two anthologies, Essential Voices: Poetry of Iran and Its Diaspora—recipient of a Midwest Book Award—and Essential Queer Voices of U.S. Poetry. Visit christophernelson.info.