Poetry Archives

There are always fields, filled
with flowers, or something sweeping, like wind
tickling the hairs of your arm, that sinking feeling

of death stalking you.  There are birds, there are always
birds swooping from rooftops,

their sinewy wings like flaps of newspaper
caught in an explanation.  There are absolutely

no flowers, and no moon to carry off
a woman from her laundry to some ancient sea.  The black locust,
a swing roped to it, the worn seat swaying

in gusts, announces the rain.  Bedsheets pound
in the wind, their floral patterns dissolving into night.

The sky and rain darken, the streets
hush an apology, something to soothe the pain

and rain continues flowing through crevasse to drain,
which lets it run again into the sea.