American Gothic Shadows are shifting on a fresh cut lawn, on an afternoon torn between cloudy, sunny. High summer’s drifting, both here and gone. At the edge of a storm, hives fill with honey. The graveyard’s insisting that you don’t belong, that gods you adore can sift time from money. Are you still listening? The radio’s on. There’s a chair on the porch. Clocks have stopped running. Someone is whistling a familiar old song from before you were born, something sad, funny. In the fields, a whispering west wind grows strong, stirs the dark head-high corn. A harvest is coming.
The Book of Cute has many chapters. Let us flip to P for puppy, two pointed puffs for ears. Two guileless eyes beguiling every casual browser. You were born to lick our fingers as they page, and pause to touch your inculpable face, to marvel at the monstrous feet muddying heirloom rugs. You have weaponized endearing, teased the stuffing out of feigned surprise at the mystery of the missing slipper. You have left your dog-eared mark, chewed the corner of a shanghaied heart.
Kevin Burris lives in southern Illinois. His work has appeared in Southern Poetry Review, Poetry East, Atlanta Review, and many others. His first poetry collection, “The Happiest Day of My Life,” was published in 2016 by FutureCycle Press.
Grand Little Things 