On Want
After Andrew Patterson’s The Vast of Night
Adam D. Weeks
Say there is something in the sky. Say there isn’t. Say we are just walking the streets at night, beneath yellow lights and clouds that could hold anything—I want to know what you would tell me. Say there’s some strange sound on the radio, say this is found only on frequency. Listen to the little orchestra behind us, the score behind our beautiful banter. Say we don’t mind this town around us, we don’t mind this world around us, say this is us stepping into sky. Say there’s your answer, unfiltered, brought to you by me. Let’s leave this could-be roadside stop, this tiny mom and pop shop, let’s look to the woods. We’ve been seen through screen and flickering, we’ve been left begging for the right number to call but this isn’t the time for that. Say we stay outside, we skip the car ride. Say we take the time to tell another story. I can’t help but wonder at the music of our bodies, at how we can hold this conversation through the static, through the broadcast interruptions and subtle station changes—I can’t just keep you on the line. Say this is us coming closer or coming clean. Say all we are is sitting in a high school stadium or radio station, we’re standing in a field, chins tilted up in awe, bodies bathed in light and pulled with wind. Say we hold, each other and our litany of reasons, close.
Adam D. Weeks has a BA in Creative Writing from Salisbury University and currently lives in Baltimore. He is the social media manager for The Shore and a founding editor of Beaver Magazine. He won the 2022 Third Wednesday Poetry Contest, has been a Pushcart Prize nominee, and has poetry published or forthcoming in Fugue, Poet Lore, Sugar House Review, Sweet: A Literary Confection, Sycamore Review, and elsewhere.