She stood in tears amid the alien corn
-John Keats
This is something buried long ago
In which eyes find different shapes.
This is you banging on steel drums,
Conjuring the scorn of whispering skulls.
This is the corn field and the crucifix,
The tornado chained to its temple.
This is not the end, not the beginning,
Not the pinning of the man to a wheel.
This is between us the ocean trenches,
The Leviathan wrecking a lullaby.
This is calla lilies turned to knives
For the unmasking of the lamb.
This is spaces of the eternal
Plotted in the antique pill box.
This is the ending riding wicked and wild
On the backs of white horses.
Jonathan Simkins
Jonathan Simkins lives in Denver, Colorado. He works as a psychiatric registered nurse. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Literary Orphans, Lost Coast Review, LuNaMoPoLiS, The Monarch Review, Wilderness House Literary Review, and elsewhere.
Artwork: Thomas Dodd, “Ephemera”
Website: http://www.thomasdodd.com/
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