Lucas Dean Clark

Ohio After

I have gone where crows circle
below gray clouds.
Only mosquitoes miss me. 

In a cornfield that couldn’t grow,
barbed wire sown into furrows
hardens my foot soles. 

There, the scarecrow
whose body is stuffed with dead hornets
holds a secret 

underneath the breast pocket:
a hibernating squirrel has chewed a burrow.
The heart is a cornered animal. 

Down, crows come,
down, perching on my fingers, each one
asking, would you like to hear my voice?

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Lucas Dean Clark is attending Bowling Green State for an MFA degree in Creative Writing. He writes about his dreams often and has a reoccurring nightmare where he is chased by black-haired dogs. He also walks in the woods like a ghost.