Tyler Michael Jacobs
Self-Portrait as Purple Flowers Wilting in Vases
The room I once loved full of flowers spilling everywhere––
There are so many other stories to tell:
When you complained about the onset of cold and the gravestones kept singing
The virginity of the dead, one became of the other.
My feet still try to find yours in the middle of the night to fall
Back to sleep. Fingers once braided together as if to say, I’m here,
Blossoming rosebuds in palms. It’s that cold emptiness
Of morning in which I wake. A moth tapping the screen
And the smell of the last cut grass wafts through the open window
In my apartment. I look at my feet wondering where they too might one day come
To rest. God, could I be any more transparent?
The shapes of trees are sweeping the sky today. It’s that line
Between birth and violation. O, trees in stale light, forgive me
For not noticing it’s the shadows that move––still, nowhere to rest a head.
There are so many other stories to tell:
When you complained about the onset of cold and the gravestones kept singing
The virginity of the dead, one became of the other.
My feet still try to find yours in the middle of the night to fall
Back to sleep. Fingers once braided together as if to say, I’m here,
Blossoming rosebuds in palms. It’s that cold emptiness
Of morning in which I wake. A moth tapping the screen
And the smell of the last cut grass wafts through the open window
In my apartment. I look at my feet wondering where they too might one day come
To rest. God, could I be any more transparent?
The shapes of trees are sweeping the sky today. It’s that line
Between birth and violation. O, trees in stale light, forgive me
For not noticing it’s the shadows that move––still, nowhere to rest a head.
Biography
Photography by Kassidy McConville
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Tyler Michael Jacobs (He/Him) is the author of Building Brownville (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2022). His words have appeared in Pidgeonholes, Sierra Nevada Review, Thin Air Magazine, White Wall Review, Funicular Magazine, and elsewhere. His poems have also been featured on Nebraska Public Media’s Friday LIVE! He is a first-year poetry MFA candidate at Bowling Green State University. He also serves as an assistant editor for Mid-American Review.
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