While I was asleep, a flock of geese landed in the tree by the fence,
The one with high branches that look down on the houses and golf course.
When I was asleep, a flock of geese landed on the roof and on the fence.
They called to each other, anxious and hungry, looking for red earthworms, black beetles.
When I was asleep, a flock of geese landed and flew off again.
They weren’t done traveling, and there was nothing here worth their time.
Somewhere to the south, there are marshes and islands, horizons of sand and water.
Somewhere to the south, it never gets cold and there’s plenty to eat.
When I was asleep, a flock of geese stopped for a moment, then kept going.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 22, Issue 3.
George Franklin is the author of Traveling for No Good Reason (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions), a bilingual collection, Among the Ruins / Entre las ruinas (Katakana Editores), and a broadside, “Shreveport” (Broadsided Press). He is also the winner of the 2020 Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Prize.
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