A Poem by Nathaniel Rosenthalis

Author: Poetry Editor

November 9, 2017

This week, a poem by Nathaniel Rosenthalis.

The Start of the Spending Spree and the Door
Opening for a Blonde

_________________________I was a swivel.
A moment—all I saw him for—was
long for me.
_______________“I wouldn’t have my way
with him.” So a person might say.

The fat of him pleased me. How quickly I
add “I’ve never” still
______________________eludes me as
I have, in my way of air and ought to.

_________________________Being one who
gathers, I offer: “I felt toward him
no violence.” I said that, being the one
who turns back, to look him
in the eye.
____________“Don’t be the pathetic,
the itch.” So says a person who is unused.

——

NATHANIEL ROSENTHALIS has poems appearing or forthcoming in Denver Quarterly, Web Conjunctions, and Lana Turner. He received his MFA from Washington University in St. Louis, where he was recently the Senior Fellow in Poetry.