Small Men Make Love on Stilts

Black hills hiked north—

Rampart water built

Against the walls—

Then well-timed air.

Sent a leaf on a journey

Nine-feet long.

Thought-clouds burst

An old friend’s heart in a pun.

I waved hello and parted

My horse’s mane.

**

Mark Yakich's first collection, Unrelated Individuals Forming a Group Waiting to Cross, was a winner of the 2003 National Poetry Series and is available from Penguin. A new chapbook, The Making of Collateral Beauty, will be published by Tupelo Press in fall 2005. Mark's website is markyakich.com.

Archived at http://lit.konundrum.com/poetry/yakichm_poems.htm