by Sam Lane
BLACK TROUBLE: MOON
—Keep one eye on the sky both dusk and dawn
cause the moon brings trouble round here
THE OVER BAKED SUN CRUSTS over and cracks as the black shake
hog-heavy paws of two blue nosed pits— the size of planets—lug
the lunar Caesar. His stubble is lapis, and lips cage teeth
encased with gold. It’s his business, to peel the sun and leave
a silver stone.
He keeps the rind.
Tonight, his crown crescents and looks nothing like a belly,
nothing like horns, but something like what grandma said.
Everybody knows if he ain’t tending his business,
he tending yours.
He was on his own shit, when the shot near chipped the misses.
the dogs smelled fear and bucked him. They ran for the house, and left him
to find his own way home. Black Trouble looked to find someone to walk with,
singing.
SAM LANE is an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Pittsburgh. Sam is primarily a poet, but has always loved the visual and performative arts, so his work attempts to find compromise between performance poetry and poems made for the page. He is originally from Valdosta, Georgia.