Johnathan Mundell
Jonathan Mundell’s work is forthcoming in Levee Magazine and has appeared in The Closed Eye Open and Cathexis Northwest Press. He currently lives and teaches in South Florida.
My Brother and Sarah on Mushrooms
You went into the grove together
across the street from the apartment,
the branches like arms embraced
your entrance and pigeon plums like palms
ushered you closer together, shoulder
to shoulder, the ground gave a little
like a raft, and then you were gone…
you told me this one night in the dark
of our living room, slumped against a wall,
your hair matted to the wallpaper
by the tears in your eyes, a lamp
inside the tears, by your pupils,
dilating as you recalled Sarah’s figure
next to yours, curved like a fillet knife,
her white Sublime shirt glowing in the dusty light,
her jeans blue and tight, holding on
to her youth as you held on
to the moment, the moon light
peeking through the trees
touched the tops of your heads,
the drug deep in your bellies,
the love on your lips,
the leaves dying beneath your rubber soles,
the crickets jumping in air.
I didn’t know what to say to you.
I’d never been in love.
I went on to chase for the kind of love you spoke of
and, when I was convinced that I’d found it,
I remembered what you told me
that night in the living room,
how you would never find another Sarah...
The lamp in your eyes
inversed, pulled in darkness...
I saw her there, in the grass, in the night...
looking back.
©2020 West Trade Review
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