The days in Chicago, poorly drawn
and everywhere a preacher. Thick with dice
or loose with change, we buried clean yawns
in rumpled layers, stretching dark advice
through telephones. The gaps were paradise,
when breath ordained our minds and wept across
our tongues in muddy clouds; the imprecise
confrontation we braved when a coin toss
confessed fountain rings. Three times we lost
ourselves among the grids of glass, the bleak
cement trailheads. You sought northgrowing moss
on every corner, every chapel peak.
And when the fourth betrayal came, you sat,
undoing laces, fingers shaking quietly.

Jacob Aupperlee is a student of literature and philosophy at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, MI. His poetry has previously been published in Dialogue, Calvin University’s creative arts journal. After graduation, he plans to pursue a Ph.D. in American or postcolonial literature.