The Great Theft
This great white page, this space—
this new morning unfolding
birds, sun, trash trucks, car alarms,
points in infinite directions.
The keys are on the bar,
the car is on the lot
six stories down.
We could go anywhere.
Put the key in the ignition—
The balloons of dialogue
await in hungry anticipation.
Flight
A bird is thing with which
I have not flown.
In dreams have I, in dreams.
They descend
and I do not struggle,
cannot struggle,
for I am the air
through which I fall
against the creeping,
the mud, that speaks;
that tells on me every night
like a jealous oracle
bereft of disengagement,
like Cassandra—
I tell the truth
and it takes flight.
The Tree Goes to Sleep
The tree is bedding down for the night
putting away its book of poems,
brushing away the cookie crumbs.
A bird lifts it leg to let loose some lint
which sails away toward the moon
to find its own rest.
The lamp has been hung high in the sky
and all the stories have been
told to the end.
So saying goodnight the tree goes to sleep
to the sound of its own leaves rustling
like fingers pulling up sheets.
Joe Love is an artist, musician, and poet living in St. Louis. He teaches writing and literature at universities both the east and the west sides of the Arch. His work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Poetry Pacific, Poetry Super Highway, The Oddville Press, Crack the Spine, Bangalore Review, From the Depths, Drunk Monkeys, Bellowing Ark, and other journals.