Doug Ramspeck

untitled oracle

father named us
shut up & don’t push it
& you’d better hope
i don’t catch you 

& the light in the bedroom
my brother and i shared
grew as dense at dusk
as fertile loam 

& we leaned against the windowsill
& imagined that the dimming bodies
of the clouds were broken 

handkerchiefs     & the sinking sun
was a stalled & bloated wagon
floating in its blood haze 

& maybe we spotted the gift
of a dead raccoon at the roadside
ghost creature 

surrounded by vultures bowing
their heads
like priests

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Doug Ramspeck is the author of nine 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: Blur (Tenth Gate Prize), 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). Individual 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.