Poem by A.M. Gwynn
Minutiae
I.
A murder of crows gathers on the porch rails
gossiping. Their conversation drags a dark wind
across my heart. I don’t trust that crowd.
They always know when there will be a death in the house.
II.
Suicide is quiet —
neither explanation
nor complaint.
Without warning
it intervenes
as long thunder
concedes to the steady
pulse of rain.
III.
The incense wafts through
the alleyway of another country—and then he was gone.
His name sealed forever. The priceless
treasure gone down with its ship beyond
the mystic depths.
IV.
The mother is leaving
the cemetery.
Even the wind
pauses to let her pass
by, her black cloth
of death
stiff and quiet.
V.
How quickly life turns
its back on the dead.
This detachable life
a sound biology —
eyelash from eye,
blood from host,
lunula from finger,
dust from bone.
VI.
A sudden sorrow
of church bells peal
in the city center at dusk—the choir of angels
like grandfather clocks rising above
the yellowing tombs and rooftops
of brass and fire.
About the Poet
A.M. Gwynn‘s most recent work appears in Cold Creek Review. Her work has also appeared in Wilderness House Literary Review, War, Literature & the Arts, Grey Sparrow Journal, Consequence Magazine, Sleet Magazine, and several other literary venues.
