print previewback ZACH HESTER
October is a Fine and Dangerous Season in America
after Thomas Merton
This morning’s fog is ghoulish and a procession
of austere goats eat the heart
of the park across the street from my apartment.
It’s a work-trade with some farm
just out of the city. I say howdy to the man running
the operation, his body molded
in the sinking lawn chair that holds
his body as he drinks
his thermos like a man who believes in coffee.
I hear waterthrush,
their throats warbling from the ribs
of a pink kite buried
in the unearthed roots of a tree
hanging out
over the edges of Scull Creek.
A squirrel darts.
Overcoming her own body,
she carries the whole of an apple
back to wherever she banks.
Her stomach remembering last winter
the way mud remembers
the sole of a boot.
The moon is a Maglite
fooled into hunting snipe
and houses line rows of the city-
grid like a train
run off-track—all tremble
and steam, tremble
and steam. The chimney stacks
have set to flight what,
for a little warmth,
our lives set on fire. 
End Times
October is a Fine and Dangerous Season in America