Chitra Ganesh, How to Assemble a Flying Car (detail), 2018, linocut on tan BFK Rives. Courtesy of the artist & Durham Press.
The Snowfields at Lone Fountain
This far out of town no one tracks the snow. In places, the stubble from the harvested corn spikes through. It looks as though some old document has been torn away at the edge where it was long creased.
Mice tunnel the fields to get at the kernels. Hawks gyre when the squalls clear. Sometimes you’ll see the black barn cat sitting and listening to the mice in their icy labyrinth. He’s like a solitary period on an otherwise blank sheet.
If you look for long enough you’ll see it, not the white but the blue.
Michael Chitwood has published four books of poetry. The most recent, Gospel Road Going, was awarded the Roanoke-Chowan Prize for the best book by a North Carolinian. His work has appeared in Poetry, The Threepenny Review, The New Republic, Field, The Georgia Review, and numerous journals. (updated 2005)