“The Saturday Club,” by Josh Bettinger, appears in the Winter 2019 Issue of MQR.
I wanted to tell you
but decided against it
because the cut of the weekend is real—
I did not wash the car
I am not on a diet
I watched the finale without you
but my love runs through the blackened yard
like a shifty dog from the pound.
How can I spend this life on you.
Childish decisions move clumsily into the day—
this acceptance of fugue
and sustained valuation—we are not a cult.
We are not a science.
We are a tiny gravity—but so aware of it
that we knock on doors knowing
an eruption of people might occur
so we shelter
our faces, cover our hands: tighten our hearts.
Every finite human walks
into the dreaming crash
like a cloud of sugar about to happen in the dark.
Purchase MQR 57:5 or consider a one-year subscription to read more. This poem appears in the Winter 2019 Issue of MQR.
