John McKernan
A Sudden Gust of Wind
Knocked me To the ground today jogging
No I was not Drunk Stoned Praying Exhausted Woeful Lost
Nor was the ground Coated with ice or snow Pocked with rubble Slippery with mud or rain
No excuse Twitching I lay on the ground almost Laughing and watched Seed after leaf after petal after pollen grain Float above Then beyond my body
The Green Children
In the far suburbs the children turn green
They paint their fingernails emerald
Their tattoos glow darker shades of lime and juniper
The children talk without stopping of invisibility as an art form
They want to be heard
Balloons bursting Hands clapping Staccato
Fireworks at midnight on the patio
Layers of melody through mist in moonlight
Spring & summer terrify their parents the most
Eternal their calls into the blue shadows of twilight
Sometimes the white of a child’s eye will gleam
Not ever to be mistaken for house cat or puma
The children will never return as children
Not until the snow covers them Like the shell of a pea.
Reprinted with permission of the author. Previously printed in The South Carolina Review (Spring 2001)
John McKernan is now a retired comma herder / phonics coach after teaching 102 years at Marshall University He lives in West Virginia and Florida. His most recent book is a selected poems Resurrection of the Dust. He has published poems in The Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, The New Yorker, Virginia Quarterly Review and many other magazines.