Previous Issue: Fall/Winter 2009

The End of Desire  
Weston Cutter

I’m hungry and making bread, waiting
for the coffee to brew. Thinking about
whether or not I should be thinking

of her. It’s not as if there’s anything else
to love: the river gathers winter’s runoff,
the runoff gathers plunked nickels, loose

debris. It’s nothing that lures the green from
the heart of the heart of the tree: it’s nothing
that’s springing. Say you’ve planted a whole

field of gardenias, you’re sure the rain’s
coming. The bread’s been rising for almost
an hour now, I’m not thinking of not

thinking of her. You’re sure the rain’s
coming? It’s not desire that breaks dull husks
with thin arms of green, that turns seeds

into lettuce, into zucchini, into mums.
It’s not desire that makes spring whisper
through rain and gardenias I will knock you down

and I will make you mine. As if desire were a
measure. A page. A stretch of rope. As if
desire were anything other than rope. The rain

and buried green aren’t evidence, aren’t proof
of anything. The plants grow toward desire,
not from it. The rain which falls tonight

while I sleep without her will tomorrow be
taken by the river to the ocean and then back
to the sky. Not even that desire’s something

borrowed. Not that the lettuce you plant
will last through October. Tell me: is desire a yes
or a no? And when she comes back to me,

if she comes back, will it be desire that
guides my hand softly to her face? The coffee’s

ready, and when I drink I hardly taste a thing.

 

Weston Cutter runs the book review site Corduroy Books (corduroybooks.com). His reviews and poetry appear in Barn Owl Review, Best New Poets 2008, Bookslut, Diagram, The Gettysburg Review, Rain Taxi, and elsewhere.