Thomas John Nudi
Fiona

You, you, you, you,
Fiona, are the type of girl
I could get used to falling
asleep next to and waking up
too. Coffee fresh off the brew,
sitting next to you, reading
the news—

I don’t read the news, but maybe
you do. You might set your glasses
over your round blue apple eyes—honey,
you’re beautiful always, I’ll say,
and you could smile but it wouldn’t matter
if you did, or if you ever grew tired
hearing me tell you.

But from what you tell everyone, Fiona,
it sounds like this is it; everything you want.
Anything you want, Fiona.
I could make you croon—

take your blues and turn their hue;
warm up your heavy empty mug
full and to be drunk by you.

Teeth

Looking at your teeth
           I can tell your age
                                                      like rings of
                                                      a tree stump.

What you’ve been through;
     all your chips, cavities,
faults,
                      patch-jobs—

I can see what remains
           when I can look                                             no longer

_ _

About the author. Thomas John Nudi II is a film director, writer, poet, and illustrator. In 2011, he served as editor of The Yeti, a Tallahassee journal. He studied creative writing at Florida State University and the graduate program at the University of South Florida. He lives in Orange, California and is working on an MFA in screenwriting at Chapman University. He is a founding editor of Blacktop Passages.

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