I hear a red, circular noise,
but I don’t know where it’s coming from.
I could look for it,
but I think I’ll just to go back to bed for a couple of weeks.
Even if the night is a magnetic field,
it’s still darkly repulsive.
When you examine the historical record,
you can learn about the lowest high temperature,
and the highest low temperature.
The speed limit however, is not posted.
It’s a little like listening to the sizzle of pink electricity;
carnal, yet pristine.
I often wish I knew how to play poker, but I was raised very religiously.
I wasn’t allowed to gamble anywhere near a television set.
It’s much easier to love an other at a distance,
although, over time, you may discover yourself
growing apart.
Love chooses its own gravity,
just like a remora chooses its own shark.
Symbiosis works best in tandem with loneliness.
On the surface of the diamond planet, ‘55 Cancri e’,
the temperature is 3900 degrees.
Wherever you may be, the flame burns bluest near the source of combustion.
On August evenings, Hollywood’s swimming pools glisten
like intentionally set wildfires.
They shimmer, wet rectangles of aquamarine, television light.
Of course, you can’t change the channel.
Fortunately, learning to write a complete poem is a lot easier than it looks,
if you give it half a chance.
Like a reincarnation story you’ve read twice,
it’s over more than once, before you’ve begun.
by Brad Rose
Brad Rose was born and raised in southern California, and lives in Boston. His poetry and fiction have appeared in , Boston Literary Magazine, San Pedro River Review, Off the Coast, Third Wednesday, The Potomac, Santa Fe Literary Review, Barely South Review, Imagination and Place, Monkeybicycle, Right Hand Pointing, Little (flash) Fiction, SleetMagagazine.com, and other publications.
