Old friend, thank you for showing me
how dazzling each shaft of daylight
truly is, how many sparrows cry
beside my window—what strength
inside their tiny, ruffled throats.
Thank you for the wires widening
my skull, their electric reminder
the world is full of noise and light.
When I have friends you are with us.
We drink our coffee in your honor.
And when I've left my friends behind,
in another place or another year,
you’ve followed where no one else would go.
Alone in seasick rooms,
I've known that you would come.
J.G. McClure holds an MFA from the University of California – Irvine. His poetry and prose appear widely, including in Gettysburg Review, Green Mountains Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Nashville Review, The Pinch, and The Southern Poetry Anthology, among others. His work was selected for Best New Poets by former U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith, and has been nominated for awards and honors including the Pushcart Prize, Best American Essays, and Best of the Net. McClure is the author of The Fire Lit & Nearing (Indolent Books 2018) and the translator of Swimming (Valparaiso Ediciones 2019), and teaches a variety of online poetry and prose writing courses.