Paradise by Brennan Sprague

        Danielle Moler CC


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Paradise

The next-door widow walks by the lamplit
window & halts your heart. She unfolds
her blanket & is lost in her want. I want
her to be happy. I want the end to feel
like the beginning. I want the want
to exist as something other than want.
A want for the sky to approach us
& offer the deal of a lifetime. A tunnel
to lead me to you, to lead her to her
husband gone. His saxophone used
to waft from his window like jasmine.
She stood downstairs in front of the television
not worrying about the concept of want. I want
that all the time. For all this endless arriving
& leaving to bloom into being, into something
other than harsh static, something resembling
permanence, a flicker of forever—anything to
turn off our televisions and instead of darkness,
the well-oiled machine of paradise, glistening.




Brennan Sprague (he/him) is a student at Monroe Community College majoring in creative writing. His work appears in Ink & Nebula, Barren Magazine and Gandy Dancer. He enjoys his two golden retrievers, dream pop & poets spanning from the beginning of time to our current age.