Missing
Steve Gerson
Three black crows perched on the school’s wire fence,
scoping the fields beyond for prey
where the fields bled into the diminishing horizon.
Above, a harrier hawk wheeled
on the gray March clouds.
A windmill nearby turned slowly,
one blade missing,
the other blades rusted like blooming spores.
Its metal lurched,
struggling to find a breeze
in the drought-ridden sky and whirred
like locusts gnawing on dry stalks.
The school yard was empty.
The playground equipment swung in the dead air,
the metal clanging against the sound
of a distant siren’s knell.
Steve Gerson writes poetry and flash about life’s dissonance and dynamism. He’s proud to have published in Panoplyzine, Route 7, Poets Reading the News, Crack the Spine, Montana Mouthful, the Decadent Review, Indolent, Rainbow Poems, Snapdragon, The Underwood Press, Wingless Dreamer, Gemini Ink, the Dillydoun Review, In Parentheses, and more.
© Variant Literature Inc 2021