Any other month,
you’d
call the cops,
report
this noise from
that backyard
party way out of
hand.
The buck and toss
of everything.
Upthrusting
gusts. Shrubs
shaking like
soaked dogs.
Half-leaved
trees, fringingly
green. Knouts
flailing—nothing
to lash.
Boisterous assaults
of roil
sinking in a second
to a whisper.
All this
out on new grass
under
a dome of cloud
and blue.
Galliards of
wind and tree,
of air and
green. The engine
of the hugest
machine—
up on blocks and
idle for a while
is cranking,
turning over.
Feel the thrum,
the throb?
It’s pulling
away from the curb,
taking you as
far as summer,
as far as
fall.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 24, Issue 6.
Edward Wilson’s poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Georgia Review, The Midwest Quarterly, Poetry (Chicago), The Southern Poetry Review, The South Carolina Review, and others. His awards include an Individual Artist Fellowship from the state of Georgia, a Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference Fellowship and an NEA Fellowship. His collection, In a Rich Country, published in April of 2019, won the Grayson Books Poetry Prize and was selected as the 2020 Georgia Author of the Year Awards as the finalist for Poetry. He lives in Augusta, Georgia.See all items about Edward Wilson
