2022, Ohio River Valley Literature, poetry, summer

That feel of the knob and how it always skipped over channel 6

This season grows tired of me.

The rain, deceptively June or even late May, falls odd against the backdrop of the first browning leaves.

It always takes longer than in the movies — we remember seasons changing like channels on old tube televisions, ignoring the static of early September.

No I don’t once the meaning of every little thing. I’m just trying to focus

on just this one.

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2022, Ohio River Valley Literature, poetry, river life, summer

My eyes follow the night hawk

Today’s gone to the dogs. The cats have thoughts too, though are less willing to share. This downslope slide into midnight it’s not the rhythm that gets thrown off so much as old programming. Habits of previous lives. A body regenerates new cells every 7 years or so or so I’m told. Coming up on 5 years sober just past 7 years out of the classroom and I am growing scales I am growing fins I am growing. Cicadas and crickets and prey mantises find me call me Fellow. Possums and wharf rats they join the birds. My eyes follow the night hawk under a the sharp edge of a late August moon. But for now the dogs just want to know they’re loved and care little if it is by a monster.

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