Nathan Lipps

Foreign

This day.

Looking for the goat lost

over that hill. And finding

the gun.

Learning the music

of a spent cartridge.

And perfecting it.

 

There is no burial

for innocence

with everyone lost amid the field

unwilling to dig.

 

Only the brief pause of noon.

Shadowless. The smell of rust lifting

off the orchard floor.

 

Wind-knocked peaches feeding

the antediluvian grass bordering

every entryway, hungry.

 

A static hand upon your neck.

The miraculous erasure of home.

Catching your breath. Good

child. Good.

Again.

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Nathan Lipps lives and works in western Michigan. He is a poet, teacher, farmer, & bartender.