that became the palm
of a ghostly hand
and listened to music
struggling to escape
one high corner of the room
and the song became
a deer’s head lifted
on a dark highway
or an inexplicable
ditch-drowned book
crumpled soggy mud colored
or a large ancient house
abandoned in the forest
and caught in the raw spring
the spring you turned seventeen
(pupating) and felt the heat
of a storm in the sun
which vanished and left
one hot drop of rain
falling from temple to cheek
or the bed became the center
of a web trailing up to the tops
of night piercing pines
from which you could not
untangle would not because
you acquired a hate & fear
of death’s blank freedom
and in that moment
became the willing captive
of riant life and manic bliss
because you were seventeen
and knew that twenty years
would regain this moment
and remember the web
the rain the storm
in the sun the dead
house in the spring
the book the antlered head
the music the spectral hand
that held you up
and let you see?
Bryan Edward Helton is a poet and fiction writer from Georgia, USA. He spent his early years writing songs and studying theology and philosophy. His work has been published in various literary journals including South Florida Poetry Journal, Amethyst Review, and Heartwood Literary. He is at work on his first collection of poetry, The Manic Joy of the Dead, and his first novel.
