Poems

JED MUNSON
Redlines

does draw as blues a curtain along

Rainraingreenfleshed ash

stump daybreak suns

Rainrainrainracome into play and waves
Rainranother surface over

the gleaned

horizon as a motion is
Rainrainrainraalways the same multiple

of winnowing dispersed in

evidence of water we are all at best

coherence none has posed

Rainrainrainrathe mystical at noon asks

only one more thing

only guilty as stones’ rung

scaled to the square

who mere so drawn mute might

Rainaccount for a sheet staggering

Rainrainrainfree from dimension

Rainrainrainrainraintime is a sheet

Rainrainrainit was born in

Rainrainwater in

session

Rainrainrainrainrainraimight do this place to tag

Rainit a taut tarp seeping

on another night’s

war focus

Rainto make a nice and easy difference

a cable

car’s inherent contradiction constant

pale and bore

Rainrainrainrawhen a wind committed the tremor

of forgery the shame chime slackened

golden folds along a river emptying

the gourd of its capacity

for proverb

right about then the sky would pour

Rainrainraiiinto the middle of a dormant fountain

community milling the sunken barley sun some

Rainbroader consolation displaced

like bathwater into the fields

Rainrainwe press the dimmed neon from

rice the mantis and the frog evolve

to become the exact green of

the land emphasizing each tiny mountain

Rainrainonly paraphrases hillsides’ sliding reams

of sandals on flexed fans for feet each

leaking frictions

we live in the middle of nowhere and

RainI can give you rides whenever you need

to the exasperated surface

or to the more doleful

Raincenter where we sleep

without breathing

Rainroom true colors showing

Rainsome respect around here

the usual screen

Rainrainof trees replace their pixels

Rainwithout felling

Rainrainrainrainriiiunconscious air

Jed Munson is the author of the book of essays Commentary on the Birds (Rescue Press, 2023), as well as several chapbooks, most recently Portrait with Parkinson’s (Oxeye Press, 2023) and Minesweeper (New Michigan Press/DIAGRAM, 2023). Other work can be found in Conjunctions, Image, and Tagvverk.