Two Poems by Nathan Blansett

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WHITE FLOWERS

Though we touch only others
you still reach for me in sleep.

You will be gone
for six months.

I will see you just once: when
I board a plane in my buttoned coat.

When you take a train from a small city
to a larger city. An old city alone 

together. Within:
like the way someone pronounces a word.

Early spring, sliding on leather
gloves, though our cheeks still numbed.

That’s what we wanted:
to touch only there.

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THE HOUSE OF LIONS

I lived in the apartment for ten months. Which felt so long,
but it wasn’t. I had cut

my hair, unpacked many boxes, the second
apartment in one summer,
both on the same street.

Unpacking every book, ordering them
like a form of knowledge on the white shelf
built into the white wall.

Believing he would love me.
Then forgetting him. His voice
was deeper than mine.

Days shedding light.
A stranger setting a bag of trash on the sidewalk
beneath the trees.
A long novel. 

It was a failure, but it was beautiful.
In the middle was a life.