There’s more to this half empty tin of peaches
than my pessimism—

help plot these points on old maps where A
is my empty room and B is in the kitchen, a
half empty
tin of peaches

We’re out with the metal detector and
magnifying glass behind
the kitchen sink, ears pressed
for dead languages and tongues
counting scratches in the plaster
just how many verbs can we fit
between us—
at the start of things
I remember a finger circling the lid
tracking daylight
across fridgescapes and porcelain
tundra and all the deafening
scenery of space once occupied

and a friend
stopped over for a
decade and a half and
ate peaches from the tin.

Take a pair of compasses and mark
constellations in red biro

cross out the old roads.

Zetetic separator
—Fred Johnson lives in Liverpool in the UK, and was, until recently, a graduate student studying American literature at Trinity College Dublin. He’s had poetry published in Spring 14 and Belleville Park Pages, and spends his days trying to make ends meet through freelance work, writing poetry, and searching for an actual real-person job. You can follow him on Twitter @FredBobJohn and visit his blog at The Interesting Tap.

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