Gillian Osborne

HETERO

You were laying out all your yellow napkins
As I was stabbing the light in the kitchen
As you were intoxicated by tulip light
As I was lighting the furniture on fire
As you were satisfying the technician
As I was lapping up the internet
As you were buttoning up the shutters
As I was filing for the long relief
As you were tuning your instrument
As I was browsing the sonnet sequences.

And the green grass grew all around
All around, and we were in it, weren’t we

Surrounded by seduction. And you were and
I was brightly backlit or blissfully invisible.

GILLIAN OSBORNE is a writer, educator, and aspirational gardener living in California. She is the author of Green Green Green (Nightboat Books), the editor of a collection of essays on ecopoetics, and an instructor of courses in American poetry at Harvard Extension School.