The dirt had dried
on his overalls
by the time he laid
his wife into the ground.
Tuberculosis, buried
under a tree, any
tree tall enough after
the wind had leveled the land.
He drove into town
to certify her death,
but beady-eyed kept driving
past the flour mills and corn.
His kid was crying.
Corn already dying.
These days never raining,
and pigeons in the dry gutter
prophesying.
Ethan Plate is a sophomore at Lindenwood studying Creative Writing and Philosophy/Religion. He works as a tutor in the writing center, and when he gets some free time, he likes to spend it listening to and playing music and writing poetry. Ethan has liked poetry since his childhood and has been writing it devotedly for the past few years. The poetry he writes is usually religious-themed with a lot of apocalyptic imagery. He has been previously published at Arrow Rock.
Arrow Rock Literary Journal 