Chris Forhan
_____

Hubbub and Ruck



I’m one prince. It takes a hundred princes
just to reroute traffic these days. An easy

chaos has come, a quickening. More laws
against loitering, more loitering, more blips

on the radar screen, building permits, hints
of crimson in the sunset, caterpillars

writhing in dirt beneath the trees.
A recalibration. A roused appetite.

The deer have made a sport of it,
leaving their bodies by the highwayside,

crumpled, like dropped coats. More racks
of Turkish fashions, winks and backslaps,

fire scorching the cathedral stones. It’s too
too, a sleight-of-hand, past justice.

Death can’t dazzle with its seamy vat
of tar. All the cabooses abandoned

on the tracks—Lord, receive our thanks.
Flags collapsing, bellying in the breeze.

The thousand cows bleeding in the fields.
They’re getting up. They’re okay, really.