Self Portrait Without Me

Start with a D minor chord in December branches
__before light can find any sparrows. Let an owl
__blow dawn’s voice out its crooked beak
__as it drops from a tree, strikes an arc across stars.
Coyote’s nails click against asphalt. Done with the night
__coyotes trot back to a den. A garbage truck drums
__up the street. Every morning a garbage truck
__drums up the street. Smells like that linger and cling.
A lot has been hauled away. The beloved dead
__enter with D minor, come like junkies
__like thieves, like coyotes to take whatever they can.
__More lays erased under snow and ice. All these losses
Have left the air jewel clear. Every day I go away from the poem.
The next morning, like a winter sky, it is more empty and more full.

Ed Ruzicka’s third book of poems, Squalls, was released in March. Ed’s poems have appeared in the Atlanta Review, the Chicago Literary Review, Rattle, Canary, and many other literary publications. Ed, who is also the president of the Poetry Society of Louisiana, lives with his wife, Renee, in Baton Rouge.