Nothing Comes

Nick Maione

But what is human

we approach craving

mouths open

within licking distance

of the Pyrenees

This holy tastes

like pretty horses on fire

speeding across a field

Here comes Bernadette

Today she is a young man

with a shotgun and an orange vest

I ask in a cobbled, trailmade French,

What are you hunting?

Sanglier, she says

smiles through two hooked fingers

on either side of his mouth

My throat acts allergic

to all the things we could

do if we believed we were loved

The sun is hot and loud

and the shadows are complete

where they are complete

Bon courage! as we part

like two humans trying

to stay on the walking side

of the water

Nick Maione is the author of the chapbook In A Well In A Church On An Island In The Lake (2016). He is the founder & director of Orein Arts and edits the online publication Windfall Room. He is from Upstate New York and lives in Western Massachusetts.