Austin Robert Smith

Between the lighting and the thunder was space
Enough for the land to lie long as a man
Laughing while being measured
For his coffin
Straining so as to be sure not to suffer
A crick in his neck for eternity
Space for the geraniums their petals
Like tissues used to staunch stab wounds
Space for the porch swing that slipped
One of its eye-hooks
Like a man who claimed to have given up
Drinking
Space for the screens curling at the corners
Like wallpaper hung when it's too humid
Space for the boy with the book in his hands
Space for the book in his hands
The span of the war
Manassas to Appomattox
Half a million dead
They all fit
In the space between when
The sapling of light that won't take disappears
And the thunder reaches him
Like the poem he'll write
Decades from then