O Tired Love it’s easy to see the wire that connects

Brandon Jordan Brown 

melody and mystery is short How inspiration quickens

the felted hammers in the formless void

Let’s rename the beginning of recorded history

The First Important Piano Poem a dirge of grace

pulled from between firmament and kelp And I am a candle

on the glossy lid    my eyes closed while all your present houseguests

chatter in the hallway and throw bread at the lake

O look at you being virtuosic at everything you do

You’ve got my wax my wick thumbs heavy as bricks

and a tuning fork threading poise across the acres between your ears

Teeth like a row of grain silos and a thick heel thudding

with the steadiness of a metronome Your suspenders

are wide as closet doors! At night when daylight is

tucked up to its chin in exhaustion and quilts strike

a match on your zipper    Take it to my head    even though I am only

worth my weight in wind My best efforts unreasonably dim

The slow foxtrot you push out

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soft and assembled by ear as the bench creaks at its corners

lending weight to the song O what is the chord that makes

creation go backwards like beautiful scarves

sucked into a trunk Is there another that causes the lid to close

And when will you know to play them I’m only wondering

Are you able to dream your rehearsals in reverse

Brandon Jordan Brown is a 2014 PEN America Emerging Voices Fellow, winner of the 2016 Orison Anthology Poetry Prize, a scholarship recipient from The Sun, and a former PEN in the Community poetry instructor. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in RHINO Poetry, Sycamore Review, Yemassee, The Journal, Forklift, Ohio and elsewhere. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, he now lives in Portland, Oregon.

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Moss is a journal of writing from the Pacific Northwest. Published annually in print, Moss is dedicated to exploring the intersection of place and creative expression, while exposing the region’s outstanding writers to a broad audience of readers, critics, and publishers.

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