| Poker Face by Jeff Loken The trees bend slowly to point me home while wind wraps my twilight jacket tight leaning me back like a broken screen door I begin to walk slower, realizing suddenly why the tall tunneling elms of my street breathe out so heavily, having been lent the air from the north which separates the hair on my neck to the scalp and pulls the dead and starving leaves from the tops of the trees like a wire garden rake, battered and rusted from winter upon winter sitting outside a shed. The sun like the bottom of a cheap orange plastic cup with a flashlight shining through it holds up clouds like cards in front of a face in shame, before folding behind the rest of the deck, surrendering to a single white flake floating recklessly down which always casts a more powerful stare this time of year. |
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© 2007 prickofthespindle.com |
Jeff Loken is a recent graduate of North Dakota State University in Fargo |