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No Rush by Todd Dillard

By T.

21 May 2025

838

No Rush
Todd Dillard

There’s a man down the block screaming
I LOVE YOU CAN YOU HEAR ME I LOVE YOU.
It’s a great twilight for confessing:
air heavy as hands on shoulders,
clouds dark as a lover’s sleeping
head on a spill of white sheets.
Sometimes I imagine you in your death
the way I imagine my old New York roommates
shopping at grocery stores in other states.
You add rutabagas to your cart
as if you have nothing to lose.
You rip open a bag of Life
Savers as you wait in the check out line,
popping one in your mouth before you pay
because who cares? You only have this one
death. The flavor you pick is FIRST THANKSGIVING
AWAY FROM HOME and the sweet of cabernet
and tryptophan and char prickles your tongue
like the salt in tears. Last night I dreamed
grief was an unlit room that I had to clean.
Just as I figured out how to navigate its darkness
I put something away and had to learn all over.
You were there. You were saying why bother
when the room was only going to get messy again
and I told you if you weren’t going to help
at least get out of the way. It’s quiet now,
the storm splits open like sacramental bread,
and I love you I love you. Can you hear me?
Write me back when you have time. No rush.

MARGINALIA

1.
I love you, can you hear me. I bend down to kiss my grandfather’s forehead. Can you hear me, I whisper. Can you hear me, I say again, over and over.

2.
Last night I dreamed grief was an unlit room. But grief is always an unlit room, isn’t it. And we’re always fumbling for the switch that doesn’t exist, knocking our shins on furniture that keeps rearranging itself.

3.
I love you, can you hear me. I bend down to kiss my father’s forehead. He is sleeping, I’ve just finished putting on his socks. Can you hear me, I whisper to his feet.

4.
I love you, can you hear me. I kiss my beloved’s neck, my lips a punctuation for every word I can’t say. Can you hear me, I say with my mouth puckered against his skin. Can you hear me.

KEEP READING

SHARED WITH GRATITUDE

This poem appeared in Waxwing, Issue XXVII, Summer 2022.

DESCRIPTION

“Waxwing is a literary journal promoting the tremendous cultural diversity of contemporary American literature, alongside international voices in translation. It is the editors’ belief that American literature is thriving, both in terms of aesthetics and cultural inclusiveness. Waxwing believes that American voices are, at their cores, both multicultural and multinational, and so the editors’ mission is to include American writers from all cultural identities — in terms of race, ethnicity, indigenous tribe, gender, class, sexuality, age, education, ability, language, religion, and region — alongside international voices, published bilingually. Waxwing aims to broadcast as widely as possible, in each and every issue, singular voices — and to hear these voices together, in all their harmony and dissonance.” (Source)

ABOUT TODD DILLARD

Todd Dillard’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous journals, including: Threepenny Review, American Poetry Review, Southern Review, Pleiades, Poet Lore, and elsewhere. His debut collection Ways We Vanish (Okay Donkey Press) was a finalist for the 2021 Balcones Poetry Award, and his chapbook Ragnarok at the Father-Daughter Dance was published by Variant Literature in 2024. Originally from Houston, Texas, Todd Dillard now lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with his wife and… (more)