With the house full of a screen door’s slam,
every shadow holds a scar. No more
shuffle of slipper across wood, no
smell of onions sweating in a skillet,
burl of water running for a bath. Only
breeze through open windows
and creaks from timber settling toward ground.
Somewhere, starlings dervish against
a purple sky, a river cuts its way
into stone. And past all that,
a spirit carries its own weight
into the night’s quiet embrace.
–
Jack B. Bedell is a professor of English and coordinator of creative writing at Southeastern Louisiana University, where he also edits Louisiana Literature and directs the Louisiana Literature Press. His latest collections are Elliptic (Yellow Flag Press, 2016), Revenant (Blue Horse Press, 2016), and No Brother, This Storm (Mercer University Press, 2018). He has been appointed by Governor John Bel Edwards to serve as Louisiana Poet Laureate 2017-2019.