“Leaving Papa” by Darrell Lindsey
Something in the gaze of ten thousand blackbirds
lays the mighty forest bare,
& the woodsman cannot even remember
the names of his children
who are running towards the nearest road
with thorns in their hands.
They shout in a broken tongue,
sense that time is either unwinding
or trying to reinvent itself.
They hear their late mother’s voice
amid the heat shimmer,
& the woman who never drove
breaks the speed limit
right through the horizon.
| Darrell Lindsey is a freelance writer/poet/songwriter from Nacogdoches, the oldest town in Texas. He is the author of Edge of the Pond ( Popcorn Press, 2012), and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2007. Most recently, he won the 2012 Science Fiction Poetry Association Poetry Contest ( Long Form category). |