“Jenae” by Zachary Johnson

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Closing Time and Materials
At the too-poignant moment
When Lover 1 asks Lover 2,
“Do you think of me often?”
And Lover 2 says, “No,
Because we never existed
Inside time,” lines accelerate
Recurrent grief. Each fiddled
Phrase vaguely draws
The shaded story of my own
Past life with an abstract
Expressionist from Dover
Ohio. It’s hard to be one
With the memories of falling
In love with her dark
Tussled hair in the Art
Institute, that time
We drove to Chicago
In a thirteen passenger Chevy
Van, for Pitchfork, but I didn’t care
For July heat in the park,
And Saturday we left
Our friends smoking weed
Somewhere in twelve-thousand
People, and walked downtown
Together, to the museum,
Where I cried and cried
In front of Chagall’s America
In Stain-glass, while she wandered
Through the moderns, finally
Texting me to let me know
Her whereabouts.
And the ensuing
Gap: two-years existing
Outside time. Inside time
Painters are creatures
It’s hard to be one
Flesh with. Even
In daily conversation,
Within the eye lives a critic,
A hawk of judgment.
And poets are creatures
It’s hard to trust. Without plot,
Without dogma, they roam
For beauty, the whole city,
Their dysfunctional
Family. Still, today, reading
Hass, I think how,
Like a dualistic goddess,
We managed to make
An entire creation
Together, inside, outside time.

-Zachary Johnson

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