Autumn Crocus

posted Jul 21, 2009

The snow arrives:
handsome, high-cheek boned.

The snow assassinating insects and numb
thumbs of grass.

May I say something?

Jealousy happens all around you. It’s the smashed
glass under your feet, the stale toys. The coat

of many colors the earth is is solemn
and rent and dreams of coal.

Often, we are hungry, lost, laughing at
ourselves, which may be a symptom of hysteria.

Other times, this big voice on a mountain
tells us what to do

which is hilarious
then awful. Antithetical

or at least not what we expected to find
on the black box

in the heart
of America

where the fields are full of music.

Kyle McCord is a recent graduate of the MFA Program at University of Massachusetts-Amherst. His book Galley of the Beloved in Torment was the winner of the 2008 Orphic Prize and will be publishing next spring by Dream Horse Press. He has work forthcoming or published from Columbia: a Journal of Art and Literature, Cream City Review, Gulf Coast, Diagram, The American Poetry Journal and elsewhere.