blue skies poetry

Robinhood, 1991

as if one phone call could
fend off the ghosts

coming into town
pickup shunting like a heifer
through the potholes
     bunting lapping at the church eaves
grass lopped & bundled &
ubiquitous ham sandwiches 
that double for weddings and funerals
if collective wishful thinking
could backcrank the clock
      it’d look like this
church shimmying free of
encroaching poplars    sidewalks flush &
fences cinching in spraddled pickets
& the dance floor
the way it used to be
bluegrass &     cheek to cheek

~ Jenna Butler

Jenna Butler is an educator, book reviewer, editor and poet. Her work has won a number of awards and has been widely published in literary magazines, journals and anthologies in North America and Europe. She has edited over twenty collections of poetry in Canada and England, and is currently working toward a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of East Anglia, UK. Her new collection of poems, Forcing Bloom, is forthcoming from Mercutio Press. Butler lives in Edmonton, Alberta with her husband.

Filed under: Jenna Butler by akublik Date 13 March, 2008