It reclines on its side, submerged.
So far, so good, it seems
to say. Still here, still intact.
And the bridge looks so clean
from this angle
underwater.
I toss
a fist-size stone
onto the upstream
side of the road,
and watch it wash away.
Maybe we’ll cross tomorrow.
“Flood Gauge in the Morning” is included in my chapbook, From Every Moment a Second, available for order now via Amazon.com and Finishing Line Press.
What is a ghost if not misplaced energy, an apprehension or the sum of invisible integers and the properties they possess? I preside over this sea of maize, tracking clouds, noting patterns up high and among the flowing stalks, absorbing minutiae, assigning connections, piecing together bits, moment to thought, soil to trickle, flutter to gain. Energy. Inertia. Waves, converted. If I had a bed I would not neglect to look under it. The closet door would remain open, a nightlight positioned nearby with perhaps a mirror or two angled to offer clarity, and the radio tuned always to jazz, providing little purchase to any ill-intentioned spirit. The power of beauty transfixes, even as it carries me far from my station, from hilltop to plains to glowering moon. If neither place nor reason, what consumes our spiritual remnants, what directs our currents to the next, and each successive, landing? Crows have long been considered conduits to the afterlife, but they exist here, in the now. I do not perspire but fix my gaze on numbers and their tales, on zero and the history of nothing, on unseen fingers walking up my spine, shedding a residue of snow, of mercury and latent images and dormant seeds in the world underfoot, acknowledging the wonders of what can’t be proven, what won’t be held or seen. Still, I add and subtract, unclench my fingers and accept the quiet, caught forever within the limits of the boundless, under the sky, in space, within the improbable.
“Scarecrow Believes” was published in May 2017 in GFT Presents: One in Four, a semiannual, print literary journal published by GFT Press.
We have always absorbed heaven,
even through these days of malformed
grain and truth pulled dark and low:
variety confirms purpose. This ear
captures no sound. These inflorescences
produce starch. Those
release pollen. You will die one day.
Inaction reflects uncertain intent.
One must weigh frost,
and with their shallow
roots, susceptibility to drought, poor
soils and high wind. Your lips
kiss steel more readily than flesh, yet
I pray that you amend your thoughts
and accept my proffered hand,
that the individual fruits of the cob
may one day fuse into a single mass,
bringing weight to sunlight,
and a greater grain to your table. But
the door stands unopened, a voice
censuring the innocent. I contemplate
converted light, consider
crows, subduction and rags flapping
in the darkness, silent
tongues wavering unseen above the
unhoed dirt, within each kernel’s
purpose, deep into a hollow core,
raging, unmet and shriveled,
hands opened, resolute yet proud.
The title is from a traditional song, as performed by Alison Krauss and Union Station. The poem is my take on it. “The Boy Who Wouldn’t Hoe Corn” was included in GFT Presents: One in Four, a semiannual, print literary journal published by GFT Press.
If all goes well it will never happen.
The dry grass in the shade whispers
while the vines crunch underfoot,
releasing a bitter odor. A year ago
I led my dog to his death, the third
in five years. How such counting
precedes affection, dwindles ever
so slowly, one star winking out after
another, till only the morning gray
hangs above us, solemn, indefinite.
Voiceless. If I could cock my head
to howl, who would understand? Not
one dog or three, neither mother nor
mentor, not my friend’s sister nor her
father and his nephews, the two boys
belted safely in the back seat. No.
I walk downhill and closer to the creek,
where the vines are still green.
In the shade of a large cedar, a turtle
slips into the water and eases away.
“When to Say Goodbye,” drafted during the August 2015 Tupelo Press 30-30 challenge, was published by Oxidant | Engine in May 2017, and subsequently nominated for a Best of the Net 2017 award.
O at the Edges 