Some Details We Missed On the Tour
You open it, start. And leave it open, to return to. But the mood perhaps never
strikes.
Sorry, I was just thinking of the vacuum decay death of the universe again,
that should’ve happened by now, and I guess
I got a bit ahead of myself. Lavender is my favorite scent. What’s yours?
Anyone? Coffee? I hate how, first,
you can’t reply, and, second, that if you do, I can’t hear. And third,
the way it’s the sloshiest liquid known to experience and now I’m on a research
mission.
It’s good to be back in the express lane
reading 30-second summaries of the most fundamental concepts
in philosophy. It’s like a lot of the things the living do,
and a lot of things they don’t, and just watch or witness
or don’t even notice, far away
where you don’t have to brake and you don’t have to steer.
And the falcon hears the falconer and the center holds just fine, thanks.
*
And then we realized everything we were planning to do The Returning Accident I’m trying to reinvigorate my game-girl era, working up a metaphor *
The cat chases the deer across the floor of the dry creek bed, John Gallaher’s most recent book is My Life in Brutalist Architecture, a poem-memoir on adoption. His eighth collection, Radio Good Luck, will be out in 2028 from Four Way Books and a chapbook, HINGE, from Sixth Finch in 2026. Gallaher has also edited two collections, with poems appearing in American Poetry Review, Poetry, New England Review, Colorado Review, The Best American Poetry, among others. He lives in northwest Missouri and co-edits the Laurel Review. Image: M., commons.wikimedia.org Check out HFR’s book catalog, publicity list, submission manager, and buy merch from our Spring store. Follow us on Instagram and YouTube. Disclosure: HFR is an affiliate of Bookshop.org and we will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. Sales from Bookshop.org help support independent bookstores and small presses.
we’d already done, and we were merely having a memory
which grew wispy, but not before we regretted our realization
and how we forgot to warn ourselves, even though
we’d promised to do just that
if the occasion ever presented itself.
With a bankruptcy on my record, I decided
to stay in school a few more years, and the next thing I know I’m 60
or something and look at me now. Thank you, I guess, bankruptcy.
And pawnshop, too. Never forget pawnshop, in either the last lever
or the first of the month ways. The orioles are loving the grape jelly
and I’m singing praise songs to the Gulf of Mexico
while scanning the exits in case I should need to leave in a hurry.
You never know when a hurry might show up.
for “career readiness day one,” and all the conversations
are already going on and there doesn’t seem to be much for lulls,
and you’ve to decide when to jump in
because this is a carousel, sure, but it’s the only thing going anywhere,
even so, and besides, it’s also how love works, and desire, and breathing,
and yesterday that keeps showing up saying it’s tomorrow now.
And you’re in, like the black square on a crossword puzzle
where all the letters hide, and I’m living dangerously, like one
who wears a white jacket to the spaghetti buffet,
and everything is fine because I’m in love,
and feeling like the Applebee’s advertising slogan, whatever it is.
It’s “Eatin’ Good in the Neighborhood.” I just looked it up,
and that’s it, exactly. One must resonate with one’s context.
and you chortle a bit. Later, you look back on the series of events
as unfortunate or fortunate, depending on where you stop
remembering. It’s how genius works, maybe. A bit after that
summer’s over, with what’s left of us at the Omaha Zoo, the little things
that decorate a life behind us whispering, “boo,” and now there’s no choice
but to say hello to the person gesticulating wildly from the bar you visited once
years ago
and had that drink that cost double what you thought it would
and you vowed never to return. It all makes sense now,
but in an adjacent way, so there’s a little wiggle room, like nuns
telling us to keep eight inches between us when we dance, to make room
for Jesus, which I thought meant Jesus was into some kinky stuff,
which got me a conversation in the principal’s office,
where I learned to keep my fucking mouth shut.
Heavy Feather Review 