After the Volcano by Jonathan Wells

We built our new house
in a field of lava.
Black pumice lawn.

The land was cheap. Rivers
in the hills ran magma red.
Runoff steamed the angelfish.

An aftershock left the air
placid yet stale. The sun
greened in the palm’s brain.

The fronds lightly shook. Night
passed so fast there wasn’t time
to sift the stars dimmed

by the neighbors’ lights.
You woke up, a comet streak,
sweaty, lost and thrashing.

When you were calm we
heard the smallest sound.
Moth wings on the mirror.

We watched as if a magician’s
hand had birthed a pea.
Earth that keeps on giving.

Jonathan Wells has published two collections with Four Way Books, Train Dance and The Man With Many Pens. His third Debris is forthcoming in 2021. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Ploughshares, AGNI and The Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day program and many other journals. His memoir, The Skinny, is forthcoming from Ze Books.