Howie Good

Bryant Thompson via Sabino

LEAVING IN THE EVENING

Follow the weather of longing,
fat, pink Rubenesque clouds,

signs that say Evacuation Route,
the sound of heavy doors

opening and closing
in the architecture of voids,

as the gunship slips away,
the queen of hearts and her retinue

on deck, and the murk of twilight
shushing the world and everything in it.

SONG IN A MINOR KEY

Love bends
like light

around
found objects,

a destitute
white Ford,

say, with one
red door

and Florida
plates,

while
the shadows

invite
themselves,

a museum
of dark

carvings,
police

marksmen
in the windows.

BEFALLEN

The violent discord in the sick room:
sleep-deprived, deprived of sleep,

the same as or different?
To be a bridge builder,

you must educate your nerves.
Somehow we got from Tucson

to Los Angeles via elevator.
Anything to restore mystery

and unexplain the universe.
It’s always 72 degrees to keep

from jumping off a building.

CYCLOPS

The fire has only one good eye.
All night I hear children falling out a window,

sirens in the distance,
serial numbers being filed off.

Volunteers scrub the birds.
Despite my poor grasp of anatomy,

I can identify the unlabeled parts,
the shark rising in the heart.

The white door of the sea stands open.

Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of 21 print and digital poetry chapbooks and a full-length collection, Lovesick, published by Press Americana. Visit him at Apocalypse Mambo.