Jordin Swanson

Limits

It is hard to comprehend,
A space so large
That it is a million and more
Stars deep, but there are places
Larger than my creativity.
I often think this
When I look at the night sky.

The song that I sing to you
Belongs to no one else.
Each verse is a hundred
Of truths deep. Each chorus
Is a time I hold dear.
These memories are mountains
Of our making. This home
To me is not a small construct.

The barn in the back
That we painted blue one summer
To make it less of an eyesore—
Though the white metal roof slants,
And it leaks water—
Means more to me than holy hymns.

The barn swallows
That make you irate,
I love them too, in my way,
Because of the crease
That they create on your lips
When you speak of them
With your hands on your hips.

These spaces and offshoots
Are larger than you think.
      The truth is this:
You occupy a space so large
In me that before you came
It too would have impinged
On the limits of my imaginings.

Agoraphobia

I shiver on summer nights
And burn in the winter
And grow dormant in the spring.
These things have nothing
To do with temperature.
My life and dreams are stale.

This house too is stale.
The only noises in it
Are those I make.
I’d welcome a ghost.
This quiet is unnatural.

I’m always dusting.
How can one man
Produce so much dust?
I wipe my life
Into a dust cloth each day.

My mother used to clean
The tile grout joints
In our house until
Her hands bled.
Sometimes, she
Went in dream trances
And communed with the dead.

Come to this house,
And I’ll show you death
Without death.

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Jordin Swanson has an English Degree from the University of Oklahoma and has been writing poetry for 20 years. He’s working on his first book of poetry, tentatively called Our Gas Station.