Two Ploughshares Poems

http://www.pshares.org/pastIssues.cfm


Canister and Turkey Vulture
by Nicole Walker

You don’t bug the cops
but you fly like a feather-minded bullet,
fasten the updraft, pivot the jet.
You are the in between
the so far as
the as to.
You note every missing shingle
every drop of vapor
everything that stands between the oh so obvious
and the almost can’t imagine.

Peck the eyes out of the sun.
Cannot see you.
Throw away air,
pound the dust with your demanding wings,
promise that water and seed and enough claw and straw
will mark your rolling
will scrape the sky
keep it from falling.

Promises Promises
Who knew the sky so heavy?
Who knew speed
could catch light’s comeuppance?
Who knew together they would sag,
ruffle, catch, and molt?

Hippocampus
by Larissa Szporluk

A bell is gonged,
the body of a girl
curled up inside it,

a town grown wild,
dogs sniffing skyward—
gong, gong.

They listen all night
for the girl to fall,
her stomach to growl,

or is it a foot
in a mindless gallop,
snorts of delight

as the gods take up
the virgin-offer,
or is it a weird

and beautiful gargle,
the lovemaking sound
of a deep-sea diver?