Poems by Mark Jackley

MONDAY

small words in
the long part
of the afternoon

after I laid him off I drove him home

DREAM OF DRIFTING

I curl up under a bush
to give the soul a chance
to hug the bones, grasp a rib
as if a tool to make
something that will last,
possibly a home.

DREAM OF US

A storm kept changing the subject.
It left the tobacco fields
glistening and ecstatic,
bent the hallelujah pines,
kissed the crumbled kudzu-
bearded chimneys whose
homes left them, pretending
to be dust.

THE LIFESPAN OF MOTHS

In truth,
we all have
learner’s permits.

Swerving
in tall grasses,
wrecklessly alive,

they make
their own lanes.