In a Monday rude with sunlight
are each of many, native leaves
I no longer recognize. Two teens
on a bench laugh like lactic acid. One jokes
to the other about his “beef feather”
and the nearest tree seems to be made to be
taller by the smallish song of a new bird
I can scarcely make out. Light jazz like smoke
in its woozy branches. The heft of my stupor
is first lead, then wax, my satisfaction
both fundamental and ridiculous.
Forget the forgetting and my ears in the world
take on a preternatural tone. I am not surprised
at the bridge, for instance, when the siren divides
the town that was two towns in half.
Alec Hershman
Alec Hershman lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He has received awards from the Kimmel-Harding-Nelson Center for the Arts, The Jentel Foundation, The St. Louis Regional Arts Commission, and The Institute for Sustainable Living, Art, and Natural Design. More of his work appears in forthcoming issues of Cimarron Review, Western Humanities Review, The Adroit Journal, Bodega, and Columbia: a Journal of the Arts.