by Nate Pritts
Whenever I open my mouth wide to talk
fireflies clog up my throat with their light
or sometimes butterflies with the way
they don't stay or sometimes mountains
with the way that they do what frightens me
more than fields or the flowers is
how they equally don't give a damn about me
when obviously I can't stop singing about them
& still there's this splendid absence
a kind of progression a new depth
like shaking apart like how
we forgot about each other because we had to
Nate Pritts is the author of five books of poetry, most recently Sweet Nothing which Publishers Weekly describes as "both baroque and irreverent, banal and romantic, his poems […] arrive at a place of vulnerability and sincerity." He is the founder & principal editor of H_NGM_N, an online journal & small press. Find him online at www.natepritts.com.