They grasp the edges of the off-white parachute
in 1st-grade gym class, soles of their sneakers
peeling off, nursery rhymes rendered mute
like a poisoned pond emptied of frogs’ croaks.
Our wonder’s stilled, a stratovolcano drained
of Greek gods, a pristine lake pumped as dry
as the Atacama, like a later Obama’s sighs
methodically drawn, his strained neck craned
towards a tea party, his own abruptly over…
Once, in my mid-20s, I stood at the Hudson River,
stared at twin rectangles, as a blur of limbs
waved at a nightmare crashing in, a blossoming
of flames; at first, just two souls, then scores
tumbling, holding hands, dreaming of a floor.
Jonathan Greenhause makes a living turning English into Spanish and Spanish into English, sharing a small home with his wife and two children. His collection, Cupping Our Palms (Meadowlark Press, 2022), won the 2022 Birdy Poetry Prize, and he was the winner of the 2025 Goldsmith Poetry Festival Competition and the 2024 Teignmouth Poetry Festival Open Competition. His poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in The Asheville Poetry Review, the minnesota review, Permafrost, Puerto del Sol, and Southword. This is his second time appearing in Solstice.
