<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse:collapse;font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><span style="font-family:Tahoma">TO CALLISTO, WHO WAS FIRST A GIRL, THEN A BEAR, THEN LATER THE BEAR CONSTELLATION</span><span style="font-family:Tahoma"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><span style="font-family:Tahoma"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px">
<span style="font-family:Tahoma"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><span style="font-family:Tahoma">If I peel back the wallpaper of this world, Callisto, will I find</span><span style="font-family:Tahoma"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><span style="font-family:Tahoma">myself in your age?  Will I be</span><span style="font-family:Tahoma"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px">
<span style="font-family:Tahoma"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><span style="font-family:Tahoma">closer to you? If the crows show as chips in a pale sky, does it mean</span><span style="font-family:Tahoma"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><span style="font-family:Tahoma">you still decorate the distance somewhere?  I know here</span><span style="font-family:Tahoma"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><span style="font-family:Tahoma"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px">
<span style="font-family:Tahoma">holds my face like some motel’s portrait hung</span><span style="font-family:Tahoma"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px">
<span style="font-family:Tahoma">in the lobby of each day, and the night’s room</span><span style="font-family:Tahoma"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px">
<span style="font-family:Tahoma"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><span style="font-family:Tahoma">has curtains I pull back to see if your slow gait in stars still</span><span style="font-family:Tahoma"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><span style="font-family:Tahoma">crosses my latest black window. Sometimes</span><span style="font-family:Tahoma"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px">
<span style="font-family:Tahoma"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><span style="font-family:Tahoma">I imagine us as the sole cast in Arcady – the gods unwritten,</span><span style="font-family:Tahoma"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><span style="font-family:Tahoma">without us. It is for spite that they spell our bodies</span><span style="font-family:Tahoma"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><span style="font-family:Tahoma"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px">
<span style="font-family:Tahoma">in animals, that they turn us to wonder</span><span style="font-family:Tahoma"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><span style="font-family:Tahoma">where we go beneath our coarse hides, our coats growing thicker</span><span style="font-family:Tahoma"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><span style="font-family:Tahoma"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px">
<span style="font-family:Tahoma">with each passing winter.  And your groves grow odious,</span><span style="font-family:Tahoma"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px">
<span style="font-family:Tahoma">my rooms in the city speak</span><span style="font-family:Tahoma"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><span style="font-family:Tahoma"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><span style="font-family:Tahoma">as though they don’t know me, as we walk the freshly painted halls</span><span style="font-family:Tahoma"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><span style="font-family:Tahoma">of each year. But if I were a bear, Callisto –</span><span style="font-family:Tahoma"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><span style="font-family:Tahoma"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px">
<span style="font-family:Tahoma">you among poplars, myself nearby the populace –</span><span style="font-family:Tahoma"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px">
<span style="font-family:Tahoma">how I would tear through this world to companion.</span><span style="font-family:Tahoma"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px">
<span style="font-family:Tahoma"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><span style="font-family:Tahoma"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px">
<span style="font-family:Tahoma"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><b><span style="font-family:Tahoma">A.E. Watkins</span></b><span style="font-family:Tahoma"> is a graduate of the MFA program at Saint Mary’s College of California and currently attends Purdue University’s Graduate English Program. His first collection of poetry, <i>Dear, Companion</i>, is forthcoming from Dream Horse Press in 2012. Individual poems can be found in <i>Barrow Street, Copper Nickel, Denver Quarterly, Handsome, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Ninth Letter, Notre Dame Review, Verse Daily </i>and elsewhere.</span></p>
</span><div><br></div>-- <br>RealPoetik<br><a href="http://www.realpoetik.org">www.realpoetik.org</a><br>