About the Feature
When I step outside I want the raindrops
pressing me a little deeper with each falling.
I might meet our spinning nickel center—
shining a dark light, wet overcoat of itself—
and I want the wild azalea above, to speak
one good sentence in my life worthy of
carving into a pine, one of those waiting
in an elementary school playground where
they still want the kids to have a tree so
they paved right up to the bark on that one.
I go to the drugstore sometimes just to
watch us. The hesitation in the ill-lit aisle—
who buys a loaf of bread at Rite Aid? I do.
You’re waiting at home. You’re hungry.
About the Author
Christopher Citro is the author of The Maintenance of the Shimmy-Shammy (Steel Toe Books) and a recipient of a 2018 Pushcart Prize. His poems appear in Ploughshares, Best New Poets, the Missouri Review, the Iowa Review Blog, Crazyhorse, Gulf Coast, Pleiades, and elsewhere. He lives in Syracuse, New York.