Three Houses Down
It wasn’t the fact that the songbird was dead
Or that I didn’t know it’s name
It had more to do with the fact
That the red and pale green feathers were dirty
As though the bird had been having a dust bath
Before toppling over
A hum in my head told me to leave it there, and so I did
For days upon days
None of the neighbor cats got closer than a car length away
The constant cackle of crows
which have plagued this town for as long as I’ve lived here
Ignored the carcass
As I pretended to do
Until the first snows buried it until spring
When it appeared again the same
But this time I buried it
Not in my own yard
That seemed unwise
But three houses down
Where an old lady with three cats and vintage cars lives
Watch the Drowning
I saw your head,
surrounded by the churning grave.
Calm, your eyes looked into me,
A creeping smile of surety and finality.
Beautiful in acceptance,
Clinging to the future,
Then disappearing under,
Surrounded by the very thing which sustains life.
You always wanted to die in the ocean.
What the Moon Sees
“The curved bone of the moon looked in the window at him.”
Drawing stitch marks across his blood-flecked face
He couldn’t sleep, but his hands were steady
They ached
Tightly gripping the hammer had tensed his muscles
Beyond the cramps he didn’t notice while swinging
A gentle turmoil rolled over him
No guilt or regret
But rather an unsettling feeling about the stories others would tell
The truth would stay as silent as the moon-shadowed grass
But that had never stopped dirty mouths from making up stories
At least one would have nothing to say anymore
The thought pulled his lips towards his cheeks
Wrinkling a dark splotch
He hadn’t had before this night
**What the Moon Sees contains a line from Stephen King's Pet Semetary.
Luke Young is a writer, bibliophile, proletarian and factotum. He is of mixed Indigenous and European American heritage. He grew up among Southeast Asian war refugees in the states of Washington and California and the nation of Cambodia. His latest poetry collection, Lazarus' Dog, was published by Between Shadows Press and he has a book of poetry coming out early 2021 from Laughing Ronin Press.