Pg. 67
Poetry by Joshua Gage
Skies over Carson Sink
I tell you now, Doctor, that on that day
the horizon flashed as a hummingbird flashes
from agastache to red columbine;
and that whatever echoes the banking of the crafts
made off the surface of Pyramid Lake or the Humboldt River
would quake even the most resilient of pilots.
Then it was that those alien shapes
which had burnt terror against the clouds
and the orange sands around Lone Rock,
and which had seared across the skeletal stratosphere,
deaf to the chatter on our radios,
sped up in formation and shattered the serene blue
dabbled with white cirrus clouds—white as white
as the beads of my mother’s rosary—
then evaporated into dust and nightmares.
Joshua Gage
Joshua Gage is an ornery curmudgeon from Cleveland. His newest chapbook, Origami Lilies, is available on Poet’s Haven Press. He is a graduate of the Low Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing at Naropa University. He has a penchant for Pendleton shirts, Ethiopian coffee, and any poem strong enough to yank the breath out of his lungs.
Editor’s Note: Joshua has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize by this publishing house.