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neighbor's floodlight
illuminates
riven skin
of a dead
shumard oak
foxes scream
then suddenly
the woods are quiet
in rough crotch
of black walnut
a lightning bug
looking for all the world
like a hot spark
freshly struck
from the flint
of a single bright star
barely visible
through the darkening
canopy
From What I Learned at the War (West End Press, 2016). Copyright © 2016 by Jeanetta Calhoun Mish. Published with the permission of the author.
Momma sent me to bring daddy home for dinner,
but I wouldn’t open the heavy glass door
until I heard him Shoot the Moon!
So I pressed my ear against the
black-painted windows of Smith's domino parlor
listening for my father's voice to rise
above the rapid fire click clack of six
A ruby crocus near the porch sends up
hope—winter of sorrow is waning
the dire moon of almost-spring rises
full with promise of renewal,
shaming twinkling city lights in its splendor.
listen:
one day when you were three,
in the time of living in the mountains
in the time of waterfalls and rainbows
hummingbird was lost—
he was trapped inside a window.
fallen to the corner of the sill
his body heaving