NEW! Poem by Micah Bateman

Micah Bateman

IF EVERYWHERE THE SOUND OF RAIN BREAKING

Pentameter rain, maddening.

To make a guest of madness

In a house made to shelter,

A hearth by which to be made

Dry. A fire calls

And smoke relays.

Imperious wind, these leaves left

Trembling, all this 

Detritus of wedding

Sky to breath, roving clouds

Of pests destroying

Miles of cornscape. Imperious sky,

Summer called, wants his

Letterman’s jacket back. My mother

Sinks a blackened pan

Into a dishwater bath,

Gulf still slick with oil, rainbow swirls,

Several rains over several nights.

My father strings a deer up

By her neck, lets it drain,

The ground fed by more 

Than morning, one finding

Oneself in heaps of things

One can’t be made

Aware of but one tries.

Sloshing down a walk,

Yellow galoshes, a girl

In a rubber coat,

Paisley dress peeking out

With each arm’s stride,

Something on an eave

Sliding frictionless,

Hypotenuse, gutterward.

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