Those Here, Imagined Or Extinct
Somewhere around the shoulders
there's a weight – the weight of a small bird
or the hand of a child
or the idea of a wingspan,
flight, feather – the idea of an airplane, an engine
or leaves striving
outward from a branch just to the edge
of what's possible, then meeting only empty air –
for each an undoing, each a failure turning
in a wind, or in the machine works
of you: like you, an unexpected end.
Coyotes wild in the neighborhood, sparrows
in the last of the huckleberries – the idea of the lake
glittering thoughtlessly under the sun:
a man in a row boat, oars
and a broad brimmed hat – the water bearing
the boat: the man, the boat a silhouette.
Charles Hensler lives and writes in the Pacific Northwest. He attended Western Washington University, where he won the Leslie Hunt Memorial Prize for Poetry. His work has appeared in Jeopardy Magazine, Crab Creek Review and The Shore.