Oct. 3, 2022
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Ask Me Later
By Nathan Spoon
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Ask Me Later
By Nathan Spoon
What is the difference between trees and clouds
when my present is the past to my future. This
seeing that I am turns the world as round as any
star and as round as the space stars hang in. If
you close your eyes you will find me resting my
head on the garden of your chest. If you ask me
anything I will answer truthfully. Then I will become
the object of your dreams the way you have been
the object of mine. Walking around I look for you.
Sitting I feel so embarrassed and my face feels
flushed. You are unaware of the effect you have
on me despite my vastness. I suppose it makes
sense to be both complete and completely lost as
you do your thing while stars do what they do too.
Nathan Spoon
Nathan Spoon (he/they) is an autistic poet with learning disabilities and the author of the debut collection Doomsday Bunker (Swan World) and the limited-edition chapbook Fail Better! Feel Great!! (Third Man Books). His poems and essays appear or are forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Bennington Review, Gulf Coast, Poem-a-Day, Poetry, Poetry Daily, and swamp pink, as well as the anthologies How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope, Sonnets from the American: An Anthology of Poems and Essays, and The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace and Renewal. He is editor of Queerly and an ally of timemedicine.org.
Image description: A black and white photo of a white person with a stubbly face, dark eyebrows and short gray hair. Nathan is facing forward, wearing a ballcap and a checked shirt, holding a paperback copy of Leaves of Grass and Selected Prose, while reclining on the steps of the Walt Whitman house in Camden, NJ.