Gregory Stapp
Subjunctive
If I were Neruda I could be a lake,
thousand-armed and reaching out
for a lover's reflection and become a sea,
the sound of a sea's roaring tide
heavy breath on the sand coast thighs.
If I were Neruda I would be a lake,
take a thousand trees and a mountain
and swallow them until they were my arms
and legs and a cutting-plow chin,
embrace the sky like a distant lover.
If I am Neruda I should be a lake.
I should lie flat and open to the world
with a thousand-armed embrace,
welcome the mountain into my folds
pebble by pebble until I'm no longer sea.
Bio
Gregory Stapp received his BA from the University of Oklahoma and is currently an MFA student at Queens University of Charlotte. His poems have appeared in qarrtsiluni, Eunoia Review, Outside In Literary and Travel Magazine, "ditch," the Gutters and Alleyways anthology, and Limehawk Journal, and he is the Poetry Editor for Qu: a literary magazine.