Tuesday, May 8, 2018

day FOUR HUNDRED and SEVENTY FOUR

                                                       Postcard from Black Jack Creek

on the swales of the Santa Fe
the Cardinals are close enough
to hear their hearts beating
there you are again
I swear I’ve been chasing you around
the country for years
ever since that day in Harper’s Ferry
my eyes still dilated from a night
smoking salvia, I was three hundred
pounds of hungry and you were a ghost
and New Africa never came to be

here we are in Kansas John
the prairie taking over
the first buds visible
on Green Ash, Black
Willow and Osage Orange

in between creeks
after the blood of
Pottawatomie
after Lawrence burned
I hear the wind carries
your voice now, I hear
the rifles firing, the coming
storm this is bleeding Kansas
this is a war that hasn’t ended

--Jason Baldinger

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