Dylan Ecker

Swing States

To want the glimmer
first, then the rain.
To think this can go
on and I would be
a recipe for a cloud
come apart. Plain
view of an Ohio floodplain.
The splendor in noticing
a great loneliness I have
touched. I am preglacial.
Ride around town. Tell everyone
how nice they look. Today
is election day. We sneeze
inside school gymnasiums.
We think of a future with
guns, without guns, with
-holding guns, guns that
are empty or
approaching. Between states
there is a tunnel built to
withstand tremors, and I
hold my breath. Wish
for it. It’s not a burning
away, it’s a runaway
cinder. Rescinding
bodies stuck in the
process of. Mending
resembles open mouths.
At the bottom of this hill
stop signs lie in the ditch
dug out yesterday
for routine replacement.

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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.