Morning in the Churchyard by Joseph Harker

The sea, turned upside down and hung over the city from
four posts, is beginning to drip. It rolls over itself, grey and
inverted, and breathes into the belltowers. The sky's language
is this suggestion of copper music. One big tongue of metal

clacking against its flared lips, one tall throat of marble
rattling with air. The first slants of rain stick to low angles,
coming in so shallow that they skip the surface of street
and sidewalk. Falling trigonometry and the calculus of

rogue oceans slamming themselves fragment by fragment
into earth. One church door is half-open. The wood is growing
dark with water. There is a surprised tree, its leaves caught
mid-flutter, each one laughing at its shameless green.




Joseph Harker