KEN

by Caleb Nichols

Unsubscribe from everything, save hummingbird wings
and the waves of plague grass that salvage an afternoon.

Aim to make half as much as you maw, and
ken ye well a language not your own.

Face it once a day, the ebb tide, how even as it wanes
it pushes in, endlessly, until the moon unspools, unwinds.

Mute everyone, unfollow. Track time by shadow scrim, the wall
a sort of sun dial, more kairos than chronos.

Listen to the plague wind, savaging the afternoon, raising the dust.

back to University & College Poetry Prizes