by Johanna Caton The buck stood at the border of dark forest and meadow, looking toward the open space. Even a prodigy of evil big as a mountain would…
Vespers in Summer
He startles and flies—
but for a moment, a pool of warmth,
a pool of stillnesss, for a moment
Coma, Awakening
When the dream awakens & the sleeping coma
is no longer present, the self finds an awakening –
its love revelation
But Why Should He Warn Us of Everything?
Overnight,
new toadstools
shoulder through
sodden grass
the way sorrows
emerge,
Praise Song for Adverse Noise Conditions
Praise the cicadas, the hydrangeas blown
against the bathroom window; praise
the wind-chimes, the whisper-press
of pages in my hand; the poem,
however it descends.
…But for the Grace of God
He’d played on your baseball team one year,
showed promise you never did.
You said you’d lost touch with him
until he turned up
in your English class that fall—
a different boy—withdrawn, thin,
and silent in a room where no one else was
quiet.