FIRMAMENT
Maybe we tease this alarm clock
back five thousand winters, then forward
with more space jets crooking past Neptune.
Time is jagged like stars in a hole. Smooth
like swallowing pearls coated with honey.
Money on the minute hand. Dust vault.
Chernobyl has babies. Listen for revelers.
Note these cherry blossoms. Orchards
are carved from raindrops. Wolf spiders
smile at all the crickets. Potholes sing.
Clyde Kessler’s poems have most recently been published in Still the Journal, South Florida Poetry Journal and Visitant. He lives in Virginia with his wife, Kendall, and son, Alan. In 2017, Kendall illustrated his book of poems Fiddling At Midnight’s Farmhouse, published by Cedar Creek.