Dylan Ecker

Person Place Thing

He used nouns like
trowels and forks.

            Dug holes that housed
opal-eyed adjectives,

transplanted sentence
fragments. I hoarded his

            voice. I heard it drying off
in the mud room. Baby

petals pressed between
the end of the letter O

            and the beginning of what is
expected. Synonyms

for loved: string beans, new
mulch, bad photo. This

            was him, teaching me to
tear out the entire root.

My eyes are closed. His
keep watch over my hands.

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Dylan Ecker is from northeast Ohio. He received his MFA from Miami University. Rejoices in the squish of a just-plucked elderberry. Has writing nominated for Best of the Net and is published or will soon appear in Indiana Review, Hobart, The Penn Review, RHINO, HOOT, Outlook Springs and elsewhere. Send your least funny knock-knock jokes to Dylan on Twitter @dillyeck.