Lucas Denzler (age 24) is a 2018 graduate of the BFA program in Creative Writing at Bowling Green State University. His poetry can be found in an upcoming issue of Prairie Margins.
Before it pinkens, the horizon is the color of a fungus
that grew in my childhood yard beneath
the utility pole I was sure my father
had planted. It could not have come from anywhere
else. He grew the Japanese maple
from a sapling, the Dutch tulips from bulbs, the German
tomatoes from seeds. A Chinese character
for “man” resembles the top of a utility pole,
crossarms outstretched, free
of trees, hanging above the street like a failed
Roman seditionist. When there is more than one
man in a sentence, are they bound
as the poles are, long stretches of aluminum
wrapped in rubber the color of ink tied
on each hand, a chain-gang of perfect
penmanship? My father is dead
now, so I cannot ask him,
but he would not have known anyway,
he did not speak Chinese,
only English and the occasional Latin at mass.