Thrush Poetry Journal
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Jonny Veach

We Are Responsible for the Crop Circles

This the original document, 
before the peace has been signed:

Here is Larry and there is Luanne 
fishing off the pier, she showing

him how to tie a blood knot
and pronouncing Latin names of fish

not yet caught. There is a lit match
falling to the floor of heaven. You can

tell they have not yet slept together, 
but will soon. The plot will bloom―

bombs will be constructed by our nation's
apple-cheeked mothers. Masks change 

faces. Migrations of squirrels swim 
across the river as the million-dollar

bones of velociraptors shudder to life. 
The way the two don't know each other 

fully is wonderful. Color by the numbers,
sweetheart. Color the rhinoceros 

purple. Make me shadow puppets
on the backs of breaking 

waves. I don't see you yet, 
but I can hear you.




Jonny Veach is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Mississippi. A recipient of a Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award from the Illinois Center for the Book, his poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Tulane Review, The Minnesota Review, and others. He was born and raised in Illinois.




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