POETRY
Once, a Man & a Flower by Nicholas Alti In the moonlight of a meadow, who is this man with one small hand & wine red teeth? This man had a son who was a giant ruined poet, keeper of sad violence crushing the Earth he wished to praise. He bent to smell an aster but fell too hard & scarred his thoughts. Always a breathless boy his heart beat gently, but loud enough to frighten the foxes, petrify the lambs at his fingertips. Six colors stained his fingers; he breathed weak wind & tried to stand. Once, when the sun itself condemned he used pine tree as pen upon the lake’s sand front, writing dried thistle in the eye sockets of fish. Every heron fled at once beyond the hills nearer Zion. His only lover was a book with no real words & bound in flesh. He grew antlers for song birds to perch. They warbled madly, darted into trees avoiding him, all things go, he chased the ripples in the water that ran away until the warm sea made him its heart, becoming the island his father drowned within. MOUNT HOPE • ISSUE 12
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