Christopher Nelson
The Command
He thought himself
young because he still felt
young and still knew the moods
of youth, as if
temporality—even
physicality itself—were
incidental. Put it in
your mouth, a command he liked
to whisper. Then the world
would pause, and he would turn
his head to see
out the window and be but
a man looking
at whatever chance happened to
reveal: fuchsia iridescence where
the gray of pigeons was,
and once, reflected back,
a man holding the head of
another man, as if they were
lovers, as if silence itself
was the question
and the answer
Christopher Nelson is the author of Blood Aria (University of Wisconsin Press, 2021) and five chapbooks, including Blue House, winner of a Poetry Society of America Fellowship. The recipient of the 2023–24 Amy Lowell Traveling Scholarship, he is the founding editor of Green Linden Press. He has edited two anthologies, Essential Voices: Poetry of Iran and Its Diaspora—recipient of a Midwest Book Award—and Essential Queer Voices of U.S. Poetry. Visit christophernelson.info.
Return to November 2024 Edition
He thought himself
young because he still felt
young and still knew the moods
of youth, as if
temporality—even
physicality itself—were
incidental. Put it in
your mouth, a command he liked
to whisper. Then the world
would pause, and he would turn
his head to see
out the window and be but
a man looking
at whatever chance happened to
reveal: fuchsia iridescence where
the gray of pigeons was,
and once, reflected back,
a man holding the head of
another man, as if they were
lovers, as if silence itself
was the question
and the answer
Christopher Nelson is the author of Blood Aria (University of Wisconsin Press, 2021) and five chapbooks, including Blue House, winner of a Poetry Society of America Fellowship. The recipient of the 2023–24 Amy Lowell Traveling Scholarship, he is the founding editor of Green Linden Press. He has edited two anthologies, Essential Voices: Poetry of Iran and Its Diaspora—recipient of a Midwest Book Award—and Essential Queer Voices of U.S. Poetry. Visit christophernelson.info.
Return to November 2024 Edition