5 Poems by Aidan Jones

1

Orange

I want to live with you in perpetual sunset
Where everything is lit by natural Edison lightbulbs  

And your lips are orange sherbet

Where eyelids are orange peels
And the sunlight throws
fuzzy, fizzy orange and yellow starbursts  

Across the screens of my eye

Whose juice runs down my cheeks  

Where I can finally taste
The sad energy built up
In my roots

From farmers’ past

Everything is incredibly warm  

Everything is incredibly safe

2

If I can’t love you
Then I will love these instead:  

The moon, stars, myself

3

“if I could support you with poetry money I would”

“if I could support you with  

poetry money I would”
little did you know your work  

nickels your irises

and its
recitation rattles the
timbre of your voice
with change,
pouring pennies straight down  

my ear canal

4

Satin, ochre, lavender, charcoal  

and you are downstairs making  

peanut stew
And part of me is very hungry
and wants you to continue cooking

but another wants you to  

be my alibi for this dusk

5

I want to wake up with you
whoever you are
and lay there with your warmth
under the blanket of the mid-morning fog  

and it’s muted sunlight through french blinds  

continuing to doze off and return

to a dream