Chris Cocca

Now That You’re in Gainesville

Jupiter has what,
sixty moons?
Who fucking knows.
There’s an eye,
a band of lips,
otherwise, it’s nothing like you. 

Well, there’s the gravity, sure.
And what’s an eye or mouth
eight billion miles or whatever
a trick of twice-dead light.
It might as well be Gainesville. 

And what’s a poem (or moon)
immeasurable, immodest
the hungry forest in Ocala
the obscene beachfronts down in Naples. 

I half-remember something
on your dressing table
(that you’d have one, like some movie)
that you’d sit, silver-slipped
a silver in-laid brush
in the quiet before work
with time to start your day. 

And I would count
the subtle pacing
of your spine
and you’d remember Compton Peak
in Shenandoah
where we found the trailhead
and offered up our gods.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Chris Cocca holds an MFA from The New School. His work has appeared in The Shore, Appalachian Review, Belt Magazine, Still: The Journal, Brevity and elsewhere. He lives and writes and sometimes agitates in Allentown, PA.