| From her vantage, the man was taller than the hill, taller than the bare basswood, taller than the ruined forge that served as backdrop in the dying light. He stood in a field of frozen feral hops, unaware, shivering. The old bull watched the woman from the hill. Her breath rose from the lower field. She looked like young corn in summer when the heat swarms the stalk. The rooster, nearby, guarded the chickens; willed itself taller. Taller than the wild hops, taller than the cornstalk woman or the man longer than the hills. The rooster had grown larger than the quieted forge and the broken, proud bull alone on the hill. The steam rising from its rump and snout. The rooster puffed its chest and was more abounding than the old Chevy with a muffler like an angry dog. The rooster forgot about the hill and the old bull forgot about the young corn. And the soothed forge saw everything but didn’t tell. The man and the woman snuck into the coop on the side of the milk house. She opened his hands with hers and asked him to open his eyes. |
Rogan Kelly’s poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in The Cortland Review, The Penn Review, Pidgeonholes, Small Orange, Tiferet, and others. He has one chapbook, Demolition in the Tropics (Seven Kitchens Press 2019). Follow Rogan on Instagram and Twitter: @JerzyPoet
