Issue 31 – 2020 – John James

Gradient

 

dusk sucks pigment
from a canvas of land

gulls go with it

drag west
its planetary turn

*

the day dissolves but you
knew that already

frost accrues   

precipitates      a storm

 

 

 

a radiator’s dull roll
eclipses wind’s hum

temperature degrades

snow hails       thick mist
blotting visibility

*

detached icicles
strewn

sidelong
about the bank

pavement interjects

hastens frozen
matter’s

slow swerve

 

 

 

burch branch   mitigated
you’d say        

broken
by the breeze

culled
in the storm’s

effacing thrust

*

attenuating
from the eaves

ice divides       my sight

lingers
in the porch’s

raucous light

 

John James is the author of The Milk Hours, selected by Henri Cole for the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize. An image-text pamphlet, Winter, Glossolalia, is forthcoming from Black Spring Press. His poems appear in Boston ReviewKenyon ReviewGulf CoastPEN AmericaBest American Poetry, and elsewhere. He is pursuing a PhD in English and Critical Theory at UC Berkeley.

 

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