Zayante at Dusk

Pitch-darkness comes first
to the shallow muck and stumble
where forsythia dims
its yellow lamplights.
Nighthawks dive, unnoticed
until shrieks separate dusk,
and dragonflies on last flight hover
over a backwater thinned by drought.
In the wind, wild blackberry
leaves turn silver undersides
as if displaying fruit
while hiding their thorns,
like Portuguese Man-O-War
with those uplifted flaps
leading them to safe harbor
with electric jolts trailing below—
and yet I pick, pop, chew,
gather scratches, itch.

Jeff Burt has contributed to Williwaw Journal, Red Wolf Journal, Modern Poetry Quarterly, and Sunlight Press. He has a digital chapbook available  Little Popple River from Red Wolf Editions  and a print chapbook A Filament Drawn so Thin from Red Bird Chapbooks.