"Apogee" and other work by Sam Calhoun
Apogee
Last night the full moon
Streamed, raced away, cirrus
over fallow fields
waiting to be forgotten
come spring who lives
in the old house?
the one with the chimney
I cannot see--
Smoke climbs
like rose branches
thermals through bones
bare of the world.
Settle on the edge
of fields, forgotten cotton;
advent calendar.
--crows dance,
the hiss of
each passing car--
Is there still room enough in this darkness to howl?
Meniere's
Close your eyes, the world still spins--
trust the fireflies are stars,
those thin webs, their light frozen flight paths
coming storms, dissipating the lunar eclipse, masked.
In the uncut yard, two red poppies twirl,
torch the moon.
Ephemera
I’m not going to lie
on this bed of winter clover,
tips thrust like antennas
listening for signals they can’t hear.
Icicles drop like pins through
the quilt of a lake and are gone.
a loose toolbox scrapes
like ghosts to the edge of highways.
No wind can change the stillness.
Insomnia
The brown fitted sheet
has come loose, reveals
the white mattress
outside, armadillos
tear into thick red clay
as moon light reveals
trees but hides stars
reflecting in a tea glass
as streetlights shake
shadows on the floor
neither meteors nor fireflies.
Grief
The lilies hang
their orange ditch
mouths, dry --
hummingbirds sip dew,
move on.
waning gibbous,
the moon slows light,
the frog slows
lapping the pool,
trapped.
Through blinds
eyes of coyotes
are dimming,
then, wild as perilla,
shout hymnals.