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Notes For Further Study

Notes For Further Study
By Christopher Salerno

You are a nobody
until another man leaves
a note under your wiper:
I like your hair, clothes, car—call me!
Late May, I brush pink
Crepe Myrtle blossoms
from the hood of my car.
Again spring factors
into our fever. Would this
affair leave any room for error?
What if I only want
him to hum me a lullaby.
To rest in the nets
of our own preferences.
I think of women
I’ve loved who, near the end,
made love to me solely
for the endorphins. Praise
be to those bodies lit
with magic. I pulse
my wipers, sweep away pollen
from the windshield glass
to allow the radar
detector to detect. In the prim
light of spring I drive
home alone along the river’s
tight curves where it bends
like handwritten words.
On the radio, a foreign love
song some men sing to rise.

Sometimes the smallest gesture can feel like a revelation.

In Salerno’s poem, that revelation is almost absurdly simple: a note left under a windshield wiper. Yet the moment carries the weight of recognition. The speaker says, “You are a nobody / until another man leaves / a note under your wiper.” That line captures something deeply human—our desire to be seen, desired, noticed.

For queer people especially, that kind of recognition has often come in coded or fleeting ways: a glance, a quiet comment, a scribbled note. The poem captures the nervous excitement that comes with possibility. Is it an invitation? A mistake? A beginning?

The only notes I’ve ever received under my windshield wipers have been someone complaining that I parked too close to their car or a parking ticket. I can’t say anyone has ever left me a flirtatious note like the one in the poem. Still, the idea of such a moment—something unexpected and slightly daring—has a certain charm to it.

Spring surrounds the poem—blossoms, pollen, warmth, fever. The season becomes a metaphor for awakening desire. But the poem is not simply about lust. The speaker wonders whether he wants something softer, even tender: someone to “hum me a lullaby.” That line shifts the emotional tone from flirtation to longing.

By the end, the speaker is driving alone along a winding river, the curves “like handwritten words.” The note might promise connection, but the poem ends in contemplation rather than fulfillment. Sometimes desire is less about what happens and more about the moment when possibility first appears.

About the Poem

“Notes For Further Study” is a poem about recognition, longing, and the fragile beginnings of attraction. The opening lines immediately establish the emotional stakes: identity and worth seem suddenly validated by another man’s attention.

Salerno uses ordinary details—pollen on a windshield, a radar detector, crepe myrtle blossoms—to ground the poem in the mundane world of everyday life. Yet these details carry symbolic weight. The speaker repeatedly wipes away pollen from the glass, suggesting a desire to see clearly or remove the haze of uncertainty surrounding this new encounter.

Spring imagery runs throughout the poem. The season represents both fertility and restlessness. The phrase “our fever” evokes both romantic excitement and the irrational rush that accompanies attraction.

The poem also reflects on the speaker’s past relationships with women. Rather than condemning those experiences, the poem acknowledges them with a curious gratitude: “Praise / be to those bodies lit / with magic.” This moment suggests a complex emotional history rather than a simple narrative of discovery

Formally, the poem moves in short, flowing lines that mirror the motion of driving along a winding road. The final image—the river bending “like handwritten words”—suggests that desire itself is a kind of message, something written in curves rather than straight lines.

About the Poet

Christopher Salerno (born 1975) is an American poet, editor, and professor of creative writing. He was born in Somerville, New Jersey, and earned an MA from East Carolina University and an MFA from Bennington College. 

Salerno is the author of several poetry collections, including Whirligig (2006), Minimum Heroic (2010), ATM (2014), Sun & Urn (2017), Deathbed Sext (2020), and The Man Grave (2021). His work has received numerous honors, including the Georgetown Review Poetry Prize and the Georgia Poetry Prize. 

His poetry frequently explores masculinity, memory, grief, and the complexities of desire. Through vivid imagery and reflective narrative, Salerno often examines how everyday experiences—driving, listening to music, or brushing pollen from a windshield—can suddenly reveal deeper emotional truths.

In addition to his writing, Salerno teaches at William Paterson University in New Jersey and has served as an editor with Saturnalia Books, supporting the work of contemporary poets and helping bring new voices into the literary world.  

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Adjusting to the Clock

Isabella and I are not adjusting to the time change very well. She only started trying to wake me up this morning after the living room light—set on a timer—turned on at 5:00 a.m. Apparently, that’s when she realized she’d overslept.

I’m used to getting up at 4:30 a.m. at the latest, which gives me plenty of time to write my blog post without rushing through coffee and breakfast. I still have enough time this morning, but it feels rushed because today is my first day back at work after my vacation.

Maybe next year I’ll remember this and take the week after the time change off instead. That might be the smarter strategy.

I know I have a mountain of emails waiting for me, but hopefully it won’t be too bad of a day.

Have a great week, everyone.

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What God Sees

“For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” 

— 1 Samuel 16:7

When the prophet Samuel went to the house of Jesse to anoint the next king of Israel, he assumed he knew exactly what he was looking for. Jesse’s eldest son, Eliab, stood before him—strong, impressive, and looking very much like a king. Samuel immediately thought, Surely the Lord’s anointed is before me.

But God stopped him.

“Do not consider his appearance or his height… For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)

One by one, Jesse’s sons passed before Samuel, and each was rejected. The one God had chosen was the youngest son, David—the shepherd boy no one had even thought to bring to the gathering.

The lesson was simple, but profound: what human beings notice first is not what God values most.

We are creatures of sight. We notice beauty, style, youth, strength, and confidence. We make judgments quickly, often without realizing we are doing it. Even in spaces that are meant to be welcoming and affirming—including our own LGBTQ+ communities—it can be easy to measure people by how they look.

And I’ll admit something here: on this blog I often post images of beautiful men. I appreciate beauty. Most of us do.

But the truth is that the outward beauty we see is never the whole story of a person.

The body we see is only the doorway to the heart God sees.

Scripture reminds us again and again that the deeper truth of a person lies beyond what we first notice. Proverbs tells us that “a person’s wisdom yields patience” (Proverbs 19:11). Peter writes that true beauty is “the hidden person of the heart” (1 Peter 3:4). And when the apostle Paul speaks of Christian community, he urges believers to look beyond appearances and recognize one another through love (2 Corinthians 5:16).

God’s vision is different from ours. God sees kindness that others overlook. God sees courage in someone who feels afraid. God sees tenderness behind a guarded face. God sees faith in someone who thinks they are barely holding on.

And perhaps most importantly for many LGBTQ+ people who have spent years feeling judged or misunderstood—God sees the truth of who we are when others only see the surface.

The beautiful truth of 1 Samuel 16:7 is not that appearances are bad. It’s that appearances are incomplete.

Every person you encounter carries a story within them. Every smile, every laugh, every body we admire belongs to a heart full of experiences, wounds, hopes, and love. When we take the time to truly know someone—to listen, to care, to see them as more than what meets the eye—we begin to see people a little more the way God sees them.

And often, what we discover is that the beauty we noticed at first was only the beginning.

Because the most radiant beauty is not the body someone shows the world.

It is the heart God already knows.

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Moment of Zen: Selfies

Friday… But Not the Kind I Like

It’s Friday again. Normally, I say thank goodness it’s Friday, but I’m not really feeling that today because it’s the last day of my vacation week. I still have the weekend before I go back on Monday, but that’s not quite the same. I always have the weekend off. It’s the return to the routine on Monday that makes the end of vacation feel a little bittersweet.

It’s always hard to go back after a long vacation. I do love my job, but I’m not always thrilled with some of my coworkers (okay, “not always thrilled” might be an understatement, but I’m trying to be nice). I wish I looked forward to seeing and working with all of my colleagues, but that’s not always the case. I enjoy working with people outside the museum much more—though I will admit that our marketing team and catering department can both be a pain in my ass from time to time. To be fair, not everyone on the marketing team is unpleasant.

Anyway, I’m just “in a mood” this morning, as my mother would say. Fortunately, there’s still coffee, the weekend, and Isabella to keep me company. Maybe by Monday morning I’ll be feeling a little more charitable toward my coworkers… maybe.

I hope everyone has a wonderful and relaxing weekend!

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