Poetry By John Gallaher

James Loesch CC



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But Then Again, We’re Believing in Dumb 
Stories All the Time


Everything is an effort, though often not much of one. 
I don’t want to lay claim on expending great effort all the time 
like living is a chore, which is often is, and even more so, 
like we’re all moving along in Morse code with spoons 
on empty water glasses, and from a distance it’s music 
but up close it’s something else entirely, like having a herd 
of pet crickets, as I also don’t want to claim 
that I’m all blithe and surfing through life 
which no one accuses me of, though I imagine it 
in their eyes anytime I get good news on a day the world’s 
doing its usual bad news thing, and all I can offer 
is a slowly growing dimness to my countertops, which isn’t enough 
for empathy, except to say “why do such things need to happen” 
in our own ways, which are somewhere on this slope 

of other people’s lives, how I feel there’s someone 
in the room with me and there’s isn’t anyone there, 
so obviously I think it’s one of my dead parents, 
but which one? Probably neither. They never visited 
when they were alive, so why would they start now? 
Science says I might be falling asleep, and sleep 
is saying “Magical Realism,” and something in me 
is saying “sure!” It’s Thursday, I’m feeling frivolous. 
They say revenants work this way, which is to say 
life is like literary criticism, with foreshadowing 
and sentences, and here’s an ibuprofen for your trouble, 
or an objective correlative for one’s inner turmoil. 
The future is falling apart, right? We keep getting bits of it 
in our produce. It’s scattered across the front lawn. 





The Aura Homily 


I was at a party where there was a person who could see auras, 
who went around the room naming them. Silver Kathleen. 
Etc. When it came to me, I didn’t have one. How can one 
not have an aura? Isn’t it like not having a soul or something? 
Is it because I’m adopted? Am I a chimera? Little blank aura kid? 
I’m being a little defensive, I’m told. But why not just make 
something up for me? Help a person out? Would it be that hard 
to say, “hmm, maybe it’s a minty green”? Where’s the harm? 
These others look so happy with their auras. Well-adjusted, 
bright-eyed. This website I’m on, because this is what’s become of me, 
lists ten possible auras and I’ve never felt more American, 
an auraless adoptee reading “techniques from Buddhist monks 
for your next two-week self-actualization workshop.” Floating monks 
reading by the glow of their auras. Let’s talk parameters. 

I took the Myers-Briggs test on my lunch break today, 
and I’m an INTP, the laziest and most condescending 
of the sixteen personality types, also the most likely type 
to say black is my favorite color. Maybe I could call that 
my aura. Adoptees are good at making stuff up. 
Nuns, priests, and the void wear black. Maybe someone 
would see me and think I’m a nun, priest, or the void. I mean, 
I don’t even believe in auras. And now, look at me. 
Maybe, being adopted, my aura is lost in transit, UPS color, 
wrong address color. Maybe my aura’s a color that’s not been invented yet, 
a secret color, like how Homer couldn’t see the color blue, 
so the ocean was wine. Maybe it said, “Je est an autre” as it passed 
and no one at this party speaks French, or the cortege 
took a wrong turn, and said, sure, this place looks as good as any. 

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John Gallaher's forthcoming collection of poetry is My Life in Brutalist Architecture (Four Way Books 2024). He lives in northwest Missouri and co-edits the Laurel Review. 
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