Turning in blue light
Eating the trees of Omaha
I called the floating green seeds
Helicopters
And drank their delicate sweet juice
I'd gather
A bucketful
Climb
To the railroad trestle
To watch their earthward descent
Spiral motions
Wherever the wind blew
Lifting my eyes beyond a vast black cloud
To a blinding white sun
Twilight
Powders the thin bars
Of bluish cloud red
Darkens the face
Of this old man on the sidewalk
Who turns to spit at me
Laughing at the screaming crone
Wrapped in a black babushka Wearing
Black boots black socks black dress black raincoat
Is it his wife who screams
In the voice of a Harpy
I should have let you die
Should not have cut you down
From the rafter you smeared with grease
You You You You Sorrow
John McKernan is now a retired comma herder. He lives - mostly - in West Virginia where he edits ABZ Press. His most recent book is a selected poems Resurrection of the Dust. He has published poems in The Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, The New Yorker, Virginia Quarterly Review and many other magazines.