A Poem by Mark Conway

by Mark Bibbins, Editor

in head stones

the sun is real but lies ::
it’s much older
than its age; by now
the excess visions
have all been booked / the best
are overused…
the river runs through dinkytown
accepting all its slops
our town fish live — celebrities –
scavenging on chemicals
and tripe / what they eat
helps them
eat up what they eat: sweet
genetic engineering;
we posit
they prefer this rise in appetite…
anymore there are
no visions / no visors needed neither nor sun screen
to block the once-
anticipated vision burn / oh
shit mon petit there
simply isn’t time:
the sun runs like honey
through the molten hive ::
it’s said
the tiny occupants can sting or
hump just once
then clatter gladly
to the floor:
the sun is real
but lies / you stop time
by simply ceasing breathing: death
is how you see behind:
the way you know someone
is back there
when that certain
someone stares

Mark Conway’s poem is from a new manuscript with the working title Fuse. Other poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Colorado Review, Iowa Review, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review Online, the Virginia Quarterly Review and Field.

You will find more poems here. You may contact the editor at [email protected].