Matthew Valades

The Birth of Wichita

Wichita, you growth from heaven, you naked dream, you are joined
mist and mistakes, a curious prairie flower wearing a shell of light.

Wichita, your code of folded petals sleeps below the grass’s roots.
Wichita, buds split wide, you are flooded with tents and buckaroos

who snatch their claims as the river’s helix of moths and bats closes.
Wichita, you fog the horizon with wind and soil, shake and levitate,

soaring in your July of smoke, your inflorescence of fences and wire,
your porch lights and furrows strung wide, hedgerow to hedgerow.

Wichita, opening through softened ground, you spread, spread and rise
beside the stream of blood that brings you, leaves a name as its grave.

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Matthew Valades's poems have been published or are forthcoming in Subtropics, Carolina Quarterly, New Ohio Review, The Moth and The Pomegranate London. He has also had book reviews published in PN Review and Quarterly West.