Two Poems

 

by Nathan Hauke

 

 

 

 

Leaves where light carves your eyes 

 

 

Buoyed in bright debris of personality

Caught in rocks and roots all the way

Coughed up shards of glass

Meant to do better

Sun like a swollen hive

Crawling with bees

Wounds that won’t close

Bleached cans of Natty Ice in the grass

Slick as a dented swing set

 

 

 

 

Saying Jesus

 

 

ONE

A cube of sugar

 

Melting in a horse’s mouth

 

Low branches through shadowy threads

Burn scars of light tremor in the creek

Relieved to momentum 

Hours after Eryn tries to help a katydid stuck in the old rug

Flimsy silver leaf caught up near tangle of minnows

Carved by noise and the desire to be changed

Name place gauged in wood

Like a blowtorch cutting through fog

 

TWO

She says your wedding song

Otis Redding’s “Cigarettes and Coffee”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nathan Hauke has a PhD in literature and creative writing from the University of Utah (2010) and an MA from Central Michigan University (2004).  He is currently co-editor of Ark Press.  His first book, In the Marble of Your Animal Eyes, is forthcoming from Publication Studio.