by Howie Good

1
A bird flies off just as I happen to look up. Suddenly relieved of weight, the branch invisibly vibrates. They say a soul weighs, on average, 21 grams.

2
When the great sage rose at last from meditating under the huge shade tree, the creatures thereabouts followed him with their eyes, as though compelled to look by the crisis of the small bird that, gripped in his hand, was trying to spread its wings.

3
Begin sweet world, street of broken glass policed by vigilante mobs, while, somewhere behind the wall on which shitbirds are casually perched, a blonde chases paper pianos and a vast potential audience of roses shimmers in absentia.

Howie Good’s latest book of poetry is The Complete Absence of Twilight (2014) from MadHat Press. He co-edits White Knuckle Press with Dale Wisely, who does most of the real work.