The World Does End

            Your father was the smoke of a brushfire.

He left you sweeping up the empty field.


The sky opens like a broken glacier. You cover

up your face with hands made of glass. The river drops 


thinly at the ocean’s feet. You put your deaf

ears to the stars: the sky’s stolen


your constellations. The trees ask

for your name in the throat of a winter morning.


In the rush, your breath falls as if there’s a jaw   

waiting for it.          



                                    But there isn’t. And the night

is the blackest feather. 

And the stars sometimes




You can have the rain but not the sky.

Because the horse knows who breaks


him. The way the lake knows who’s drowned

for her. It wasn’t your mouth but the spider


that had seen enough: the shore, sunless,

and a viper on your tongue. The shadows brush


the pines. Or is it the fire that’s brushed? The sky’s blood-

letting; but you could ask of the stars—if they keep


whispering—for the secrets

                                            you know they’re telling.  

Derek Graf enjoys making espresso and watching traffic from his window (pictured). Recently, he's been listening to Blind Pilot, Real Estate, and Surfer Blood. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Portland Review, The Boiler, and
Revolution House.

Images by Elfie Hintington courtesy of the L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.

Copyright © 2016, Otis Nebula Press. All rights reserved.