Two Poems, by Jonathan Aibel

Childhood’s Back Yard

Disheveled, rangy, I could climb

the apple tree that bloomed obsessively

when days warmed and as summer cooled

dropped small bug-eaten fruit

by the hundreds, smelling like pie,

a mulch of apple flesh, fermenting,

the buzz of drunken wasps a pretty music

warning of the impossibility

of getting close.

Here Was a Frog

Curtain skin drawn to either

                   side transverse                                    reveal lungs, heart

                     did once beat                                    vinegar soured

                unrotting, unruly                                    formaldehyde             

                       half-formed                                    boys, girls,                

                         heads bent,                                    try not to smell,

               not to drag sleeve                                    or hair. Tease out

               pin flags, naming,                                    each pink-grey

               lump, three-lobed                                    liver, ovaries,             

                          waypoints                                    in the body

                       we navigate.

---

Jonathan B. Aibel is a recovering software engineer who lives in Concord, MA, traditional homelands of the Nipmuc. His poems have been published, or will soon appear, in Chautauqua, Pangyrus, Lily Poetry Review, Cider Press Review, and elsewhere. http://www.jbaibelpoet.com.