Doug Ramspeck

the midwest hangs itself while listening to bobolinks

& the birds know how to slow a lifetime’s hands
how grass is not a quickness but a history
& once the midwest dreamed an epistle of moonlight
above the quiet houses     & once the midwest made a religion
out of the cadences of loam     though the skeletal remains
of the factories still wait amid the broken glass     still hold
themselves aloof in that same forgetful abeyance     & the midwest
studies how the stars after dark are open wounds     how legs
thrash before the toes point down     but here     now
there is something holy in a bobolink      holy in the spiral
staircase of dusk leading up & up to nowhere     in the clawgrip
of the clouds     & the sudden drop like a souvenir

________________________________________________________________________________________

Doug Ramspeck is the author of seven poetry collections, one collection of short stories, and a novella. One recent book, Black Flowers, is published by LSU Press. Five books have received awards: Distant Fires (Grayson Books Poetry Prize), The Owl That Carries Us Away (G. S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction), Original Bodies (Michael Waters Poetry Prize), Mechanical Fireflies (Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize) and Black Tupelo Country (John Ciardi Prize for Poetry). His poems have appeared in journals that include The Southern Review, Kenyon Review, Slate and The Georgia Review. He is a three-time recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award.