by Daniel Lehan
No Portents On This Path
I saw a deer today,
dead bloated and stripped
for parts, and I chose
not to see it as a sign.
Like the books scattered
on the way home
until the back way turn
or the white chalk — heavy
in the street yesterday,
suspended in a moment
of air that was too heavy,
too still, too close
to water falling in sunlight.
Even the vultures aren’t circling;
they wait in the branches, swaying
windswept before the first crack
of thunder in the still waiting air,
and when the rain falls
it will wash away the chalk
the pages, the deer,
and none of this will be a sign.
L.M. Cole is a poet and artist residing in North Carolina. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming with The Pinch Journal, The McNeese Review, Stanchion, JAKE and others. For more information visit https://linktr.ee/lmcole.
Daniel Lehan studied Fine Art at Winchester School of Art, England, and later studied Art Therapy at Goldsmiths College, London. His work has been published in various print and online poetry journals including 3:AM, Whiptail, Arteidolia, star82 review, The New Post-literate: A Gallery Of Asemic Writing, Otoliths, Ink Sweat and Tears, Ballast, M58, Neon, Word For/Word, foam:e, Indefinite Space, experiential-experimental-literature, Kumquat Poetry, the delinquent, and small po[r]tions. His erasure books and texts were recently exhibited at the University of West England. www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/erasures/.