by Jenna K. Funkhouser I. a bird which is not quite a heron rests by the slow river and the ripples caused by little eddies around its grey spinster feet…

like the regret we feel
when losing what is dear
like the time before days became grave

When we met, she
gave me a little coin,
dazzling in old Oklahoma dust

In Amsterdam it was raining, in Iowa, the snow had angel-misted over
the mangled corn fields where the wind howled as it marauded
across the naked burrows & into the open pig barn like a sliced hurt,
ripping a black dress apart &, in Paris, a couple softly read the
news paper

You will be the song I hum
in the dark, forgetting
Who it is I sing of

In the crossroads of old, your shadowy image
of stone steps warded off the Devil’s temptations

all the way to me sitting on this bench,
thinking about the word miracle,

A bloody business, this annual
pruning; the thorns still razor sharp; fingers and
forearms scored scarlet;