but we can’t honestly say that’s the cause of our disquiet / the alignment of the planets may indeed affect our behavior, but this wall has been long in the making / i don’t know who laid the first brick / you say i didn’t speak to you in the parking lot that morning / i say my ears were full of birdsong / we have come to the table to break bread, the wine gone rancid in the cup / the cost of your voice would be the silencing of mine / and i worship the sun

friendship
laced with stars
optical illusion

Christine Taylor,

a multiracial English teacher and librarian, resides in her hometown of Plainfield, New Jersey. She is EiC (editor-in-chief) of Kissing Dynamite: A Journal of Poetry and assistant editor at Human/Kind Journal. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and appears in Modern Haiku, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Room, The Rumpus, Eclectica, and The Paterson Literary Review, among others. For links to her poetry, haikai, fiction, and CNF, visit her website: www.christinetayloronline.com