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Vachel Lindsay
When Kate and Ro swing foam swords over head
and Rhys rides his bike with feet lifted from the cement
and the gray cirrus strips begin to fray in our sky
and the sun once again becomes pronounced
and the ants are all there surrounding my tea cup
and I hear the engines of the trucks in the parking lot
behind our home and notice that each bolt
of the carport is my hair color and the very air
is light and thin, when the bubble stays in my throat
and I could never wish for silence
and the high flung plane is visible over the houses
and the boys go back to their own fight
and their mother returns to her raking
and alone I sit in the blue plastic chair,
my heart falls in my chest and I remember
a creek’s sound on a sanding bank
and the dog’s little bones scattered
from the scavenging
M. Rather, Jr. (Dr. Michael Rather, Jr.) is a poet, teacher, and practitioner of Historical European Martial Arts. His work has appeared in West Texas Review, Subterranean Blue Poetry, Star 82 Review, Borderlands, and Concho River Review.