Thrush Poetry Journal
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Adam Chiles

Bluff

It’s a familiar script, a gull’s 

      attention to wind, gray 

petal, feather-slammed, 


accustomed to bullying, not me, 

        I turn my back on it, claim 

this pool room’s lit pasture,

 
its geography of Bells, and contemplate 

       the erosions, a house 

inching closer to the shore, 


one already toppled, gate open

       to cliff edge and horizon,

we’re all headed for the bluff,


the gale, its clarifying salt,

       may as well enjoy the view,

I do, and when I step outside


for a smoke, night coming on,

        its final verse and chapter,

who knows what I become


rowing off , wind borne,

       my cigarette knitted to the dark,

all evidence pulled asunder.




Adam Chiles's work has previously appeared in Barrow Street, Gulf Coast, Indiana Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, and other journals across North America and the UK. His first book Evening Land (Cinnamon Press, UK) was nominated for the 2009 Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for best first book in Canada.




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