Juan Pablo Mobili
Over a drop of Port,
sharp as the thorns on my mother’s roses
Shymala Dason
after dinner, we discuss
what to do with the leftovers.
We can always put an egg on top,
I say, quoting something she says often,
and my wife smiles, knowingly, confirming
that an egg never ruined anything.
These days, I wish, in secret, to be an egg,
that noble, that worthy of trust,
but even roses hold on
to the sharpness of their thorns.
Blood will not stop flowing.
The yolk will break; there may be riots.
Sacred Confluence
I’m tempted to write about three lonely gods
walking into a bar, but they are not drinkers,
devoid of bodies they’d rather whisper
how we should live, flow within us,
watch over our incarnation,
a sober task for deities, an achievement
comparable to watching the rise of a full moon
holding my granddaughter in my arms,
holding her tightly as awe flows between our bodies.
Juan Pablo Mobili was born in Buenos Aires, and adopted by New York. His poems appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, Hanging Loose Magazine, South Florida Poetry Journal and Louisville Review, among many others in the United States, as well as international publications such as Impspired (UK), The Hong Kong Review (Hong Kong, SAR), and The Wild Word (Germany). His work received several nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and his chapbook, “Contraband,” was published in 2022. He’s also a Guest Editor for The Banyan Review, and currently finishing the manuscript for his next book of poems.