A journal of art + literature engaging with nature, culture, the environment & ecology

Three poems by Aevan Gibson

Aevan Gibson, Oxford, Mississipi, USA

 

The Fortune-Teller

  

I was a boy when the palmist

Said I'd be someone. In the cut, oaks lie felled,

Years among them. I'm still here,

Serving coffee.

I am in love with our delivery man and his coat,

The nap of the suede so smooth.

Knolls surge beneath the grass where I lie.

The body soon to wane, as molting leaves;

Then I am all things,

And no one.


Ventura Homecoming

  

All the birds cry fire,

And the mild sky is a gown tearing

From a slip of thigh as it shows.

Well, God forgive me, I'm a lark

That moves like the sun bends to my wing.

Who is given the time to weep?

On this morning,

When from some awning, you emerge

To smoke or maybe to drink

A little water,

Its coolness pleases the throat

That says nothing of its want,

That dares not sing.

Norman’s Suite

A king to a knight

Said bring me the heart of this country,

And he traveled unreturning through years of fog.

I saw you last in a field

Where your skin was reddened, and the bare day

Speckled gold on your clothes.

I miss you like fire.

But I would not see you now as you are,

Indoors-pale and searching,

In a room, searching.

 

Aevan Gibson is a poet and photographer from Oxford, Mississippi. As a community-supported artist, she has earned writing grants from the Yoknapatawpha Arts Council and performed for Quasar, a grassroots artists' collective. Her work is informed by the American landscape and by the working-class experience.

Two poems by Mike Cole

Affirmation