Poetry by David Harrison Horton

from City of Loss

[10]

This is how you sew a button:

First, put a bullet in the chamber,

dumb-dumb it afore

for better effect;

second, scream into a February

wind as if your mother were

dead and that somehow mattered

to you;

third,

from City of Loss

[14]

When it’s cold, you build a fire,

bundle up, wait for spring.

Actions, movement follow

a slower pulse,

the morning birdsong a little less thick,

but just as welcome.

from City of Loss

[14]

Detritus, wreckage obsequiated plumage,

here and about

where no infant is heard

crying.

Stack one, then another

fault upon your shoulders,

and walk through this thresh,

as others before.

Let dusk come early,

if it has a mind to.

Let what’s been done be done,

heaped upon the pile

that is the mountain

we’ve climbed thus far.