Justin Rigamonti

Nothing

When the lilies in the glass flute croak, 

we buy tulips. When the tulips

turn to mush, we hike a quarter mile

and buy ketchup-colored daisies.

It’s how we do: welcome purchased beings, 

hold their beauty ransom,

discard what’s left. I’m looking at our dog,

her brown eyes widening.

Even our rental home replaced 

a wooded block, replaced the river

villages. My parents plucked me 

from nonexistence, the only everlasting status,

because they wanted to, because they

could. And now my beard is white. Tonight,

hold me in bed and promise me 

you’ll smile when it comes. Promise me

you’ll name nothing after me—the nothing 

I’ll fly into. The nothing I’m from.

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Image by Joshua Michaels from Unsplash

Justin Rigamonti teaches composition, creative writing, and publishing at Portland Community College, where he served as the program coordinator for the Carolyn Moore Writing Residency. He is the author and illustrator of children’s literature and his poems have been recently published or are forthcoming in Ploughshares, Rattle, American Poetry Review, and The Dodge, and his poem "Failure" was recently selected for inclusion in Best New Poets 2025.

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