Two Poems by john compton

untitled

our house is claustrophobic: a catastrophe;
a large grave, with two dead husbands—

no family visits. no stranger enters.
the entrance is sealed off;

has been for years.
the outer door knob

is missing—
we’ve forgotten what it looked like.

even the mice come and die.
their bodies at the walls

chewing through plaster
trying to dig out their escape.

the front of the house is a thief.
it reflects a home, but faintly.

the blue vinyl is sunbleached;
windows are covered with plastic:

not even the birds
have the allowance to look in.

the gnats scurrying around the light
eventually falling to become winged corpses.

everything died in this house,
everything:

the dogs; the cats;
the lady who lived here last.

*

untitled

this is what you offer

your upturned palm
that wears a wound
that holds a seed
planted there
in the meat and bone

roots already growing
snaking to your veins

this is your method to convince me

the apocalypse
is not coiled on your tongue

and one year
i will take
that thing that grows

*

john compton (b. 1987) is a gay poet who lives in kentucky with his husband josh and their dogs and cats. his latest full length book is “my husband holds my hand because i may drift away & be lost forever in the vortex of a crowded store” published with Flowersong Press (dec 2024); his latest chapbook is “melancholy arcadia” published with Harbor Editions (april 2024). you can find his books, some poems and other things here: https://linktr.ee/poetjohncompton