From Solomon’s Song
Come back
with your
beautiful feet
in scuffed shoes
Come back before
I slip again
into metaphor
Your thighs are something
a jeweler fashions
in the Diamond District
Your belly button is
the rim of a wine glass and your
belly is a loaf of buttered bread
Your breathing
is soft like
sleeping deer
Come back
I am trapped
in these never-ending
metaphors
You are
for delights
and tangibility
If you were a fruit tree
I would climb you
and pick all the fruit
I am yours
and you are
delightful
Sometimes I pretend
we are children growing
up together on a cul-de-sac
I find you wandering
down our street and
bring you inside
My parents are terrible
at hiding their love
making—I already know
how to do it
It usually starts with
soft music and
supermarket wine
Then dad puts his
left hand under her
neck, his right
around her waist
But their love is
indoors and ours
must be under
the apple tree
Some mornings I feel
you’ve sprung to
life from its seeds
Especially when it
begins to drop
ripened apples
Carved on the lower trunk
is a heart with
initials too worn
to read
Carve my initials
on your heart. Tattoo my name
on your arm so our love
can’t wear away
Love is strong as death and
passion lasts even when
six feet of earth is heaped
between us
The planted seed re
members the tree it will
grow to emulate
We spark together
and set this tree on
fire; with lightening the
lovers initialed it
Between us
flows a current
that can’t be switched
off or bought by monopoly
You say,
“When you hum along
to the carousel’s hit parade
I want to hear you”
Then come to me!
You have heard my
metaphors you
are a tree you
are a deer you
are a bicycle down 6th Avenue
Come to me
By Brandon James O’Neil

Biography
Brandon James O’Neil is a poet and scholar originally from Rochester, Michigan. He has recently relocated to Scottsdale, Arizona after living on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. His work has appeared in Plough, Image, and The Dewdrop.