The southbound train passes us by, its horn a long

                               slow free jazz solo somewhere on the

other side of the horizon line of this perfect

                                           calendar photo of a fat

                     stop-light red sun (mid-

                                                          October),

                                           settling

                                    just

                         now

                                  on 

                                        the

                          edge of

                                  the county,

                setting fire to the

                         distant fields and trees, it seems,

             as it slowly descends the backdrop of the sky while

some arrangement of the moon and stars rolls up

                                           and over the other side of the night.

Jason Ryberg is the author of eighteen books of poetry, six screenplays, a few short stories, a box full of folders, notebooks and scraps of paper that could one day be (loosely) construed as a novel, and countless love letters, never sent. He is currently an artist-in-residence at both The Prospero Institute of Disquieted P/o/e/t/i/c/s and the Osage Arts Community and is an editor and designer at Spartan Books.

back