Michelle O’Sullivan

Down, unequal weight on his haunches and the rain driving his shirt sideways, his legs are as rigid as the stone and timber that props him up. Ears, half-opened lips slurred to bits; a head no longer able to troubleshoot the broken glass inside him. • Wiry treetops are blacker. The after-rain light diffused to near neon-gray. There was a boy seen by neighbors running the width of the field. One said he disappeared — as if he fell headlong into the horizon. Another said it wasn’t a boy, but a hart. Next to nothing left where Evans was found, but there was a sound box, some thing in which his soul made itself felt.

Early April and there’s a light-footed feel. Nothing troubles from the darkened underbrush, and the sun’s late beauty daubs the green wood with yellows. As if for you, a thrush rills, blue pieces of silver that will dry like watermarks. Almost delicate, the hour around seven, a blown-glass bowl, edgeless and honed, made bespoke. Yet somewhere inside this evening hour, a man refutes: his fist will not burden the kitchen table. A wintered heart, hard as a knot of holly.