Loving You Is Ordinary Heaven by Jessie McCarty
Dirt is my sound, every stretch is the soil is a bow to your stage
Loving You Is Ordinary Heaven
Does it matter that I considered a yoga mat for the folk show? Does it matter whether those bodies inside such a grave were ours? I'm filthy, this is what counts. You meet me at the corner of California and Division. Where do we go? We walk, endlessly, nowhere. We go out searching for shovels. You linger, you're tired. You sit. I graze down toward my hands (closed). Should you be carried? To carry you (under rocks) built for you (working harder) for you (without greed) is an act of remembering. We reach the crux of location. Dirt is my sound, every stretch is the soil is a bow to your stage: epigraph, love letter, midnight, changes. You are still tired, I am still digging. Kisses are left to unbury devotion (where it matters) whether music is playing or not. The concert is once again over, and the walk it takes from the stage to the bed is unjustly long. The grass grows louder. The sun sinks lower. We dig and pray. We dig and pray. Does it matter? I just get your memory, and I just get to be there, and I just get to live here, bent over and bowed.
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First published in Minnesota Review, May 1, 2025.
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