Reading Catullus on the Metro-North

Observe the obverse, a shining coin.

Loving passion, encircled,

this is not the soft love of flowers and sparrows, hard-

edged with cutting need.

Flip it, reverse it.

Hate. Shameful fire, stiffening

your cheeks. One pair at least. Impossible

to know which

which side you'll get.

It's too warm clutched in my fist.

Matthew Nisinson (he/him) is a proud New Yorker living in Queens, NY with his wife and daughter and their two cats. He studied Latin at Vassar College and earned a J.D. from The George Washington University Law School. Each summer he grows chili peppers. By day he is a bureaucrat. His poetry has most recently appeared in Hyacinth Review, en*gendered, and Newtown Literary. You can find him on Instagram @lepidum_novum_libellum and on Twitter @mnisinson.