Mike Dillon

Issue 41

 

On a Day That

A bend in an unfamiliar road.
The windshield smeared with afternoon rain.
The wipers almost kept up.

I glimpsed a moss-roofed cottage in the firs
on the other side of a creek.
An immaculate woodpile in a decomposing shed.
Pink buds scalloping the black tendrils
of a plum tree.

Out of some deep-well of memory
along an unfamiliar road
as the rain began to thicken.

 

The Lahaina Library That Was

No door you’ve opened
on this earth ever opened
to a fiery blue rectangle of ocean
framed by an open door
on the far wall where the salt breeze
sifted in while you stood before
a shelf devoted to the works
of Herman Melville.

 

In the Archives:  

Issue 34

The Hush of Slack Tide

Tonight you will lie down beneath
a distant blue wave scented with roses

 

Issue 33

Stink Eye

Whatever color your eyes
it cannot match the gleam

of molten, starless dark
bolted to yours

from far back in time.
Quick, hold on to something

before you fall through.

 

Issue 31

Like Unwritten History

Across the moonlit snowfield
hare and fox tracks

zig & zag
into the dark wood

from an old story
where words can’t go

 

Issue 28

Against the Future

Thin as the knife blade
he slips between a peach
and its skin are their differences.
But a knife blade just the same.

Japonaiserie

The rust-red western clouds
fade in the chill sunset —
a gaffed salmon
draining its color