James Kelly Quigley
Off of Rte. 4, VT
So. I’ve left and come back.
Where the cliff faces pulse like lungs.
It gets chilly.
Hickory dissipates from the flue.
Reports of black bears
nosing through the dumpster.
Wheat beer, grapefruit juice.
Cinnamon nicotine pouches.
Bitter coffee, wet grass.
Holes in the foliage where slugs have eaten.
I get older.
Weeping birch peels pink and raw.
Leather squelching on the muddy trail
that leads and leads away.
The shepherd's fur raises.
A crescent's soft froth in the early afternoon.
Skeins of bare branch tourniquet
the gouged mountain.
Steam and sheetrock. Pepper jack omelettes.
Slapping blood back into my feet.
More. I'm telling you.
There is much, much more.
James Kelly Quigley’s poetry has received a Pushcart Prize nomination, as well as a nomination for Best New Poets. Recent work has been published or is forthcoming in Harpur Palate, Narrative, Nashville Review, Puerto del Sol, The American Journal of Poetry, Tinderbox, and other places. He received both a BA and an MFA from New York University, where he taught undergraduate creative writing and served as Copy Editor of Washington Square Review. A finalist for a Brooklyn Poets fellowship, James was born and raised in New York, and lives in Brooklyn. See more of his work at jameskellyquigley.com.
Return to March 2021 Edition
So. I’ve left and come back.
Where the cliff faces pulse like lungs.
It gets chilly.
Hickory dissipates from the flue.
Reports of black bears
nosing through the dumpster.
Wheat beer, grapefruit juice.
Cinnamon nicotine pouches.
Bitter coffee, wet grass.
Holes in the foliage where slugs have eaten.
I get older.
Weeping birch peels pink and raw.
Leather squelching on the muddy trail
that leads and leads away.
The shepherd's fur raises.
A crescent's soft froth in the early afternoon.
Skeins of bare branch tourniquet
the gouged mountain.
Steam and sheetrock. Pepper jack omelettes.
Slapping blood back into my feet.
More. I'm telling you.
There is much, much more.
James Kelly Quigley’s poetry has received a Pushcart Prize nomination, as well as a nomination for Best New Poets. Recent work has been published or is forthcoming in Harpur Palate, Narrative, Nashville Review, Puerto del Sol, The American Journal of Poetry, Tinderbox, and other places. He received both a BA and an MFA from New York University, where he taught undergraduate creative writing and served as Copy Editor of Washington Square Review. A finalist for a Brooklyn Poets fellowship, James was born and raised in New York, and lives in Brooklyn. See more of his work at jameskellyquigley.com.
Return to March 2021 Edition