How do the small birds
in the street know
how not to die—
that whatever
they gather,
hunger for, is never
enough to keep them
in the road
when our wheels bear down
upon them? They feast on
what I cannot see
then fly away
& sing.
This poem appears in the September 2025 print edition.
Harvest moon.
My howling heart—
mouth a mask.
What say you?
The Sun
knows nothing.
Only night—
my voice raised in it
tall as wheat.
The maize
of your breath.
The body
betrays us—
so we run.
Still the moon
bearing babies
above us, waxes
unlike the leaves.
Burn on,
saith the trees.
*
Save yourself.
*
October, almost—
ghost moon.
Haunted heart.
No, I won’t.
The rain slows, shows
the earthworms
they were wrong—
far harder to breathe
here, above earth,
than below,
where the storms
shelter their own.