13
Howie Good, August 2009
A dot of blood where the sun should be.
“I’ve nothing to say about it,” my heart said.
Trees in full leaf haunted
the highway for miles,
millions of dimly veined hands
reaching out as if begging forgiveness,
or offering it –
but, of course, I’ve made mistaken inferences
from vague gestures before.
At the border the guard told me to pop the trunk.
My heart rattled
like a plastic bottle of small, white pills.
It was then the evening returned with two guns
and started shooting.
Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of eight poetry chapbooks, including Police and Questions from Right Hand Pointing (2008), Tomorrowland (2008) from Achilles Chapbooks, The Torturer’s Horse (2009) from Recycled Karma Press, and Love Is a UFO (2009) from Pudding House.
