Ron Houchin is the author of five poetry collections. His collection of short stories, Tales Out of School, will be published by Wind Publications in late 2012. LSU Press will release his poetry collection, The Man Who Saws Us In Half, from their Southern Messenger Series in the fall of 2013.

Death Masks

 

1.
Since early October every broken twig,
yellow leaf, and whining cicada has tried
to ward off winter, as if keenness and color

may hide the sense of falling out of the world
that exiles from light, between the plummeting
and the having plummeted, feel.

2.
When the sky disassembles into snow
and reforms as surface, smothering things
of other seasons— picnic woods, swing seats,

parked ambulances and tree houses— we are trapped
indoors and inside ourselves, under the sheets,
children dreading the frozen face of the moon. 

 

 

 

 

 

Read Ron Houchin's previous work in Still

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