You Be the Judge

for Dawn Thompson

There is only one rule
of any real value
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Mrs. Butterworth stands on the windowsill
of the Christianson Ranch shack, whose door
stands agape with the hasp-screws rotted out.
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Forty years down our wilderness path,
neither I nor you recall the genesis.
All we know is our tweenaged selves
standing in shame before your holy father
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A poem maketh not the sun to rise,
    Obscureth not the wayward path at dusk—
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for Joshua Dodds

He speaks in a voice with eyes:
eyes that hear,
an ear that touches,
a hand that reaches around your heart
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Truth is necessarily loved in such a way that those who love something else—besides her—wish that other thing to be truth. Continue reading →

A man stands on oiled chipseal, camera in hand.
The highway undulates distantly, nearly straight,
as heat-shimmered dips lend the appearance
of road-fracture, shifted along a series of faults.
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In response to a Middle English facsimile of the Gospel of Luke

The minims of textualis crowd themselves,
ascenders aplenty but descenders few,
into Wycliffe’s words of Gabriel to Mary:
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The nameless cream-colored tom creeps quickly up
and crouches motionless, knowing that the bowl
of the birdbath keeps him concealed from the finch
which perches on the far side, dipping its beak
into the pool of clear water—dipping and preening.

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