Sitting in the Car With the Windows Up

                   It’s actually winter this time

                sixty-five degrees in February

                         outside the supermarket,

                         Cadillac’s engine halted

                        many moments ago now.

                     Inside the car it might feel

                           eighty-five degrees —

                           I allow the heat to grip

                       my throat with mounting

                        pressure, wriggle a little

                     in the stuffy discomfort—

                         try to picture the dream

                painting your mind’s horizon

                                  ever westward as

                             July’s midnight heat

                 gripped your sleeping throat

                                 tighter and tighter

                       like it was nothing at all.

A Typical Conversation

these days is more like
a meditation or a prayer,
though I keep it casual and begin

sacredly with The Simpsons,
in nomine patris et filii
et spiritus sancti
purple-monkey-dishwasher—

and for a moment you must away,
not to the past but our new future
where you heft the delicate heavenly dart
in your steady hand, aiming
over your shoulder

through a distance that isn’t so far

to bullseye your smile
whenever I need it most.

Writing Poetry with God

I end up doing most of the talking.
Questions as worthless as the genesis of kings,
the floorboards creaking their disapproval.

The time spent in between writing words
is cousin to the vastness between molecules—
savior to the wreckage of time.

Each gifted silence is brief,
simple like my father explaining
that we’re going on vacation.

Brandon C Spalletta is a poet from Herndon, Virginia. His poetry has been published in Panoplyzine, Gargoyle Online, Elysium Review, Maryland Literary Review, WWPH Writes, and The Mid-Atlantic Review, and his poem ‘Daydreaming’ received an Honorable Mention for Day Eight’s 2023 Luce Prize. At twelve years old he stood atop Old Rag Mountain, and his heart never left.