Joseph A. W. Quintela

THE POEM SHOWED UP AT A QUARTER PAST

two, in a blouse that showed
her nipples, her nipples spoke
with every shiver. Shiver (noun):
the fear that I'll forget the texture
of her cheek. For like seasons,
we that deal in love must also deal in trade,
breath for breath and glance for glance
and a wind of words for a cavern
of flesh, as not all things are equal,
or equivalent, at least, but then,
no one reads as much as we do,
anymore, or perhaps, they do
but in spurts and shivers
of eye on screen, I shiver,
the shiver a sent love letter,
the shiver a cantilevered verb,
the shiver a page for the draw
of silence. Shiver (verb):
to recollect the brush of skin.
And I admit to being out of fashion
when fashion is a vanishing blush,
or a deadpan delivery of heart on demand,
wouldn't you rather shake and quiver,
quake with desire, with need for claws
to scrape the day away
and leave the leaves to mingle
in the mud? Shiver (interjection):
when I am with you, I do not fear decay.

Joseph A. W. Quintela writes poems. On Post-its. Walls. Envelopes. Cocktail napkins. Twitter. YouTube. Clothing. Skin. Anything he gets his hands on, really. His first full-length collection (BlackMarket; 2013) was released by Publication Studio Malmo as the inaugural title in their Plagiarism Series. Other work has appeared in The Collagist, ABJECTIVE, GUD, Bartleby Snopes, and Existere. As the senior editor at Deadly Chaps Press, he publishes both an annual series of chapbooks and the quarterly review, Short, Fast, and Deadly. He is the creator of the #Bookdress Project, a collection of living poems that have appeared in galleries, bookstores, and museums across New York City. His works of Sculptural Poetry have been shown throughout New York City, most recently in a solo exhibition at Dumbo Sky and in ongoing installations at The Strand, The Nu Hotel, and Salinas.