SurVision Magazine

Tail Feathers


I arrived by rain.
A few metallic swoops went through.
A cauliflower was also a mirror.
X-rays discovered a pile of skulls
beneath Cezanne's heap of peaches.
Plenty of salt, blood and cocaine.
What I knocked my head against
turned out to be crystal.
A room hummed.
The big kids told the little kids
you'd die if you touched the door.
It felt warm.
It felt soft.
Moist.
Like flames.





Later That Same Moment


Realism makes me sad.
Perspective is for sissies.
If you can't stand in a waterfall
and scream, how do you expect
to catch a cloud convincing enough
to vanish into yet alone
one of those 50 foot sunflowers
that devoured Van Gogh?
After we took her kitchen knives,
car keys and started locking her in,
knowing that wouldn't be enough,
my mother swore she was being robbed.
Who am I? I asked
but she was no help.





Then Comes


Moon pulling a cooler shadow
from our aching shadow and a spider
glistening on the window furiously
ferruginous jewel, window where
a pale face beneath the business face
becomes no face and a single note
runs through every bird and we
lie down with a thousand galaxies
and pain is just glitter in the mind.





Dean Young has published nine collections of poetry, the latest being Shock by Shock (Copper Canyon Press, 2015).  His awards include an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is currently the William Livingston Chair of Poetry at the University of Texas, in Austin.