– Jonathan Minton

We were like characters in a story about a house.
It collapsed into vapor.

You were the girl wreathed in gold and green.
You were the girl among garlands.

There was a desk, a lamp, and a broken chair
where I fell asleep.

There were other elisions. You were also sleeping,
and only fire could wake you.

In the true story you were the ghost
saying the twin serpents are dead in their tree.

In the true story I was the ghost
saying because someone else is buried here.

There Was a Desk – Notes:

The audio is based on poetry by Jonathan Minton, recorded and mixed by Diana Magallón. The visuals at the beginning and end of the video are by Diana Magallón and Jeff Crouch. The music is by Jeff Crouch, mixed by Diana Magallón. All video samples are stock footage from Pexels.com. All photos are public domain. The video was compiled and edited by Jonathan Minton.

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Jonathan Minton lives in central West Virginia, where he is an Associate Professor of English at Glenville State College.  He is the author of the book Technical Notes for Bird Government (Telemetry Press, 2018), and the chapbooks In Gesture (Dyad Press, 2009) and Lost Languages (Long Leaf Press, 1999). He edits the journal Word For/Word and co-curates the Little Kanawha Reading Series.

Diana Magallón says that drawing was her first language.  She is the author of Oxygenation, De l’oiseau et de l’eau, largoscabellosflotantes, Bravísima Reseña and Fábulas Furtivas. Her works have appeared in E∙ratio, Word for/Word, Slova, Compostxts, Fenamizah, Moria, Sentence, Great Works, Otoliths, The New Postliterate and Shampoo, among others.

Jeff Crouch is alive. In Texas.