Artifacts

by Joseph Young

A glass jug sat on a lichened boulder, filling with rain. When water brimmed the lip, the stony bald suffered in the drought.

A pair of iron sheers lay on the hemlock floor. When pressed into the loam by the passing of a hoof, the golden leaves began to fall.

A fieldstone wall traversed the mountain spur. When broken by a clumsy bear, the frozen stream shifted in the thaw.

A Model A rotted in the grassy hollow. When mice were birthed in the glovebox, the moon rolled over the western ridge.

A dooryard of periwinkle grew among the litter of leaves. When the blue flowers bloomed, a sick wren finished dying.

A lone wall leaned with the wind. When the stone chimney fell, lightning burnt the wasps’ nest.

A button was wedged into the bark of a tree. When the crow took it home, the snow closed the fire roads.


Joseph Young has poems forthcoming in The Blue Moon Review. His prose has appeared in The Mississippi Review, Opium, Literary Potpourri, and Small Spiral Notebook.