Thursday, April 20, 2023

DEVIN JOHNSTON ~

 




Little Egypt



Counterclockwise

a vulture circles

the point of emptiness


rising above a rotting corpse

once a deer

diluted with distance

until it smells of musk


while at the foot

of a river bluff

in underbrush

a brown thrasher

gets off with the work

of flipping hickory hulls

for the flutter of insect life


as a solicitor fossicks

among old files

in uncontested solitude

the long sifting

of a legal process


drop it drop it

pick it up

pick it up

cover it up


stet


stet




_________________

Devin Johnston

Dragons

Farrar Straus Giroux, 2023