Press Play to hear the author read their work.

Listen

Joy found in the absence
all about us.

Nothing singed
and everything easy.

Harvest pumpkins
glow burnt orange,

smoldered yellow.
A cat comes

offering
in its mouth a songbird

pink as grease
just after the match.


Press Play to hear the author read their work.

Shells

A dogwood flush with catbirds feasting near autumn

The sound of what they split falls through dense limbs

Bright rain also fretting leaves

It should remind me of jewelry boxes

Should remind me of downpour on tin

Instead, empty bottles in a loner’s shopping cart

I could get lost assembling it all

Could recall a hailstorm that blessed the wedding of two teachers

Could recall the bride and groom who shot AKs in celebration

Ammo casings ringed her dress, only one to clip the target

The sound of spent shells used to be so easy

Crunch of beach sand, other subtle loudness

Who hasn’t been instructions for attempting hard repairs

Who hasn’t read of soldiers in foxholes quoting Shakespeare

Falling asleep to dream of what’s been shot 

In that a kind of quiet

These ever-plumping birds

Blare of pink quartz

Peal of wings


David Antonio Moody (Twitter: @davidmoodyblues and Instagram: @oddyc) is a visiting assistant professor of English at Flagler College where he teaches nonfiction and poetry. His creative and scholarly work focuses on the video game as literature, travel narratives, and Southern ecology. His recent work appears in Hunger Mountain, Watershed Review, the Florida Review, and the South Atlantic Review. A former museum docent and circus performer, he holds graduate degrees from Arizona State University and Florida State University.

Previous articleCheryl Graham
Next article2023 Poetry Contest

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here