“FOOTPRINTS” and “NOSTALGIA” by Brandon McQuade

FOOTPRINTS

She left behind two wet footprints

on the bathroom floor. One

on the white bathmat, barely visible,

like a freckle on her sun-kissed skin.

The other like a stencil on the tile,

condensation tracing her foot

in minute detail, from callused heel

to stubby toes. Every time the door

closes behind her, I worry

that I might never see her again.

Tonight, I think if anything happened to her

that I would tattoo the outline

of her footprints on my chest,

to capture the final traces

of her soles on this earth,

my body her stepping stone

between this world and the next.

NOSTALGIA

after Chris Abani

A steel blue car travels like a cloudless sky

through Nebraska cornfields. Yellow-gold

leans like an elbow on the salt-blistered

dashboard, your auburn hair glowing

with memories. It feels, in this moment,

as though I have lived three lives, all of them

centered around you. We spent my first

together, young lovers discovering each other

and ourselves. My second was spent thinking

about what could have been—miles and miles

of rivers and roads and an international border

wedged between us like a pitchfork. As for

my third, I’m still living it. Some part of me

still travelling like the afternoon light through

your auburn hair, your tender voice the music

of our journey, still sitting in the passenger seat

alongside you, in that steel blue car

driving through Nebraska cornfields.

About Brandon McQuade
He/Him/His

Brandon McQuade is an award-winning poet and Founding Editor of Duck Head Journal. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Dewdrop, Rust + Moth, 34 Orchard and several other magazines and anthologies. He has published two collections of poetry, "Mango Seed" and "Bodies", for which he was awarded the Neltje Blanchan Memorial Writing Award. He lives in Northern Wyoming with his wife and their children.