Gone Lawn
a journal of literature
About This
How to Submit
CURRENT ISSUE
Archive

Gone Lawn 34
Autumnal Equinox, 2019

New Works

Lee Patterson


an essay about the day after wednesday

it's thursday again. I'm in the backyard digging a ditch, burying everything I've ever known about color, including color. today's been a tough go. this morning I woke up with my lips clenched against a dream. in the dream there was you, dressed in a gown whiter than fresh enamel, climbing into a casket of linden.


an essay lost in the jungle, seeping spinal fluid

I come outside to watch you pull weeds from the garden. it hasn't rained in weeks but inside always feels so damp: there are thunderstorms in the bathroom & the sink constantly drips drips drips. I see things so quiet I don't know if they're real. what I do know: there is nothing left but magic, dirt, weeds growing growing growing. soon our yard will be nothing but jungle—people lost in the weeds higher than trees, their spines hunched like capital c's as they blindly find their way to wherever they belong.


Lee Patterson's poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Hobart, Thin Air Magazine, Entropy and Queen Mob's Teahouse, among others. His chapbook, "I get sad", is forthcoming from Ethel Zine in late 2019.