Ward
Maximilian Heinegg
Your mother is elsewhere. This is a dragonfly,
but we want him around because he devours
the mosquito. Dearness, each sliver of the world
is a nicking for blood, and we’ve got enough
for it, but notice itches. I’ll remember this
morning better than you will season’s pleasures,
ones abandoned for a sinecure. Years cancel,
drink’s a whirlpool, a wealth of lovers tapped
at a widening bar. When you wake, you’ll know ghosts
flitted about your every misstep, or aging, past this
one day wonder, ask how afternoon storms passed
while you dozed beneath cracked, sodden branches.
If we don’t speak again, you’ll never know all
that never happened. I brought you inside.
Maximilian Heinegg’s poems have appeared in The Cortland Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Tar River Poetry, December Magazine, Wilderness House Literary Review, Crab Creek Review, among others. Additionally, he is a singer-songwriter and recording artist, and the co-founder and brewmaster of Medford Brewing Company. He lives and teaches English in the public schools of Medford, MA.