The Northville Review
an online literary journal
Fever Dream

Gregory Sherl

I record my voice saying Love me like butter

over and over

and I play it while you sleep. I whisper it in your ear,

while you read poems I write about your hips.

Today I start a Weezer cover band, but I can’t play guitar or drums

or bass or tambourine; hell, I can barely clap standing up,

so I just go Oooh oooh oooh baaaabbyyy into

an unplugged microphone.

You’re the hottest groupie since The Beatles broke up.

I read somewhere that if you do the same thing
consecutively for 21 days it becomes a habit.

Today I begin building an ark in my backyard. It’s been raining

every afternoon for the last 18 days and I’m not taking any chances.

We practice lassoing a giraffe by throwing yards
of tied shoelaces around a light pole outside of my apartment.

Feeling accomplished, we make love on the grass. I put the red ants that crawl

around my lower back into an empty jelly jar. I punch holes
into the lid. The red ants sting me and I hate them some.

Still, I leave a few blades of grass in the jar.

You go to work. I sit on the couch coated in cortisone cream,
watching Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. My hands have nowhere

to go: they hang in my lap: they pull threads
from the seam of my t-shirt.

About the author

Gregory Sherl's poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Columbia Poetry Review, NYQ, Gargoyle, New Delta Review, and Linebreak. He co-edits the online journal Vinyl. Gregory can be reached at jesuis.gregory@gmail.com.