Blake Lynch

The handy man’s shack lies in a grave of snow.

Its shingles collapsed in time. Its tank run dry.

At dusk, the dark river spirals downward

near the doe driven mad by blue tongue.

His pickup truck lies alone in the stone lot

as orange weeds crawl toward the floodlights.

In these dark fields named after Boyce

who fought his steel-eyed statesman father

one winter in the courtyard of the Blackstone

with a pocket knife wedged against his throat,

that first night, she slept without stirring.

Boyce could almost hear December’s widow coughing.

His new wife wore flowers in her hair until it grew to spider webs,

and with a wren’s piety, grew thin as trolley wires.

The stadium not yet erected.

Everywhere trees grew upon each other.

He had to learn to regrow in the same dirt

after he watched the plants get black and die.

 

Blake Lynch’s publishing credits include Chelsea, King Log, Poetry Motel, 2River, Stray Branch, the Oakbend Review, Potomac, Zygote in My Coffee, Forge, 491, Shampoo, and the Rusty Nail, among others.