American Chordata: Magazine of New Writing Issue One, Spring 2015 | Page 47

From two backyards off, running water.
Here, rose on a breeze and nasturtium
splinters orange sparks in sunlight
Inside cornbread stiffens in its glass box
and sugar stirs dim coffee
and gladiolas hug the red pressure of air around their vase.
I note after the fact how even the gentle
because dull are influenced by the popular ambiguous
propositional style, and so a genius template breeds
bad reverb—out back, air still enough
for flies to drag their own willed paths
Cats negotiate under the stairwell
with wet pelts on cool fern-colored pavement

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