Gustav Hibbett
Image by lkmort from Pixabay
Gustav Parker Hibbett is a Black poet, essayist, and MFA dropout. Originally from New Mexico, they are currently pursuing a PhD at Trinity College Dublin. They are a 2022 Djanikian Scholars Semifinalist and a 32 Poems Featured Emerging Poet, and their most recent work appears or is forthcoming in Banshee, Pigeon Pages, River Heron Review, Adroit, Belfield Literary Review, and Icarus. You can also find them on Twitter (@gustav_parker) and Instagram (@gustavparker).
Porch Season
The junebugs are still here,
well into July, and even in them
there’s a sort of calm. An absence
of hurry now, as if they have flown here
just to sit still, worship incandescence.
Night sounds — fans whirring softly
on and off, the carpet of cricket
and cicada noises, car engines
somewhere in the distance — hang
humid, settle for a moment
before they dissipate. Like stars
wed for eons to their luster,
even lightyears after death,
tonight takes its time. How
finite spaces fold and swell
within themselves. My love,
I want to stay forever
in the routine days
I’ve still to spend with you.
Like the firefly propelled upward
by his own light, tonight is filled up
sticky with itself. A porch hemmed
in opaque curtains, the ripple
of the fabric like a sign of life;
a veil warmed and wet with breath.
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