John Belk
the young immortal plane
after Brian Kershisni
here lies a buffalo here lies a mountain of buffalo
here lies a wrestler telling stories with the soft animal
of his body
here lies a goldfinch & a starling skinned
by the neighborhood cats
in 1872 one-point-eight million buffalo were killed
in the fields of North America
i visited once the long grass like
swells of air released from the chest of a dream
wildreed & petrichor tinseled heaving
of earth & sky i bottled the wind carried it
into the mountains with buffalo skin & a knife made of stone
i put it to sleep by the fire
& i looked for things with my tool a saying
scry a cotton gin & a chokehold the barrel of a gun
in 1873 another one-point-eight million buffalo were killed
here water evaporates as prayer
here lies an ancient ocean salt billions
of scattered seedheads a good story
or two both cruel & kind drawn from the bones of a man
the skull of a slow-moving sort of cow
definition of the continental shelf
n. the segment of ocean floor ownable
by men where light still travels
cookie-sweet & fading all energy and
flamboyance a crown of thorns
we’ve had since we were young
the man says survivors are always happy
because at least they are alive they sing
their songs tell tales of their hurt
give it a spine and feed it ragged
on floors of silent seas
the man says slavery is in little things
a tea set from Saxony cufflinks a sweet-meal
biscuit from Leeds 12 nautical miles
offshore is the furthest a nation can claim
beyond that : the sum of all we can’t hold
but shelves are curate emancipate
meant to show & to tell a bird feather
beads the friend we hurt a dream meant
to scrawl our mark on the curve of the earth
to die with crumbs on our faces ;
--
John Belk is an Assistant Professor of English at Southern Utah University where he directs the Writing Program. His poetry has recently appeared in Sugar House Review, Crab Orchard Review, Madison Review, Salt Hill, Kestrel, San Pedro River Review, Worcester Review, Sport Literate, Poetry South, and Arkansas Review among others. His chapbook "The Weathering of Igneous Rockforms in High-Altitude Riparian Environments" is available from Cathexis Northwest Press. His scholarship can be found in Rhetoric Review, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Composition Forum, and edited anthologies.