Dusk

What are those animals
lurking in the weeds
beside this winding
darkening two-lane through
the Cherokee reservation?
Maybe they’re huge llamas.
Donkeys. Oxen or asses.
Mutant horses, shaggy
and woolly. I’m amazed
at my ignorance. I couldn’t
tell you the name of that
tree, that flower, that car
coming toward us over
the double-yellow line,
white lights bearing down
on our own animal natures.
 

Barry Peters lives in Durham and teaches in Raleigh, NC. Publications/forthcoming include The American Journal of Poetry, Best New Poets 2018, Connecticut River Review, Miramar, The National Poetry Review, Negative Capability, Poetry East, Presence, Rattle, The Southampton Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, Third Wednesday, Trailer Park Quarterly.

 … return to Issue 11.3 Table of Contents.