Litany of Departures


            Afterdamp of April, evening thaws.
A hungry mutt
                           yowls a bruised gospel,

            its body a dying star—
throat aflame with want.
                  Night thickens

            with the reek of things unwanted
by heaven. An owl calls to a hole
                    in the sky where the moon once fit.

            Wolves circle this village,
snatch blind children mid-street.
                     Lord, make me the hound

            that crawls beneath the porch to rot.
Let me return home, alone,
                   unravel each worn ligament

from bone, dissolve
            into this tilted hour.

 
 

Sarah Escue is a poet, editor, and native Floridian. She holds a BA in English writing from the University of South Florida and is an MFA candidate at Naropa University. She serves as the Assistant Editor at The Adirondack Review and is the recipient of fellowships from the Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets and Writers in Paradise. In 2015 and 2016, she won the Bettye Newman Poetry Award. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Gulf Stream, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, So To Speak, Damselfly Press, Milk Journal, The Mindful Word, and elsewhere.