Christopher Cheney

Love Poem

The nightgown didn’t become translucent until the fifties.

My mother was born in the fifties. The first nightgowns

we see are usually our mothers. When I was born

my mother was told I was dead. Sometimes when

I’m touching a nightgown I think what if I were dead

this entire time, and death was getting up early

kissing my fiancée and shooting hoops in the park.

I think death is taken too seriously. Real ghosts

aren’t translucent. Real death is a private school

in Connecticut where we are all the headmaster’s sons.

Where we cut class and get stoned in the woods.

The forest is translucent when the moon is above it.

I guess, the forest can be a real badass sometimes.

Like when it swallows a man and wears him like a babydoll.

To honor something that’s not there. To bed with it all.

Also to be in a nightgown completely alone in Amherst,

Massachusetts. Now that’s translucence. That’s also love,

Or at least what’s left for us.

Christopher Cheney suggests "Untitled Poem" by C.S Ward appearing in Flying Object's "It's My Decision" series.

(For December at Everyday Genius, contributors were asked to recommend something elsewhere on the Internet.)