Poetry

Owen Starr

Buffalos

Christmas, without any snow In still Pittsburgh serenity— Powder and dust. Pap, stubborn Spirit, pulled me close, His wrinkles like ravines.

Upstairs whining under our weight To my f ather’s old room. He retrieves Tupperware With quaking hands, These coins I’ve had Since I was your age.

He hunts, rif les until He grabs hold of a stumpy Plastic bottle, Take These. They are Buffalo Nickels.

Two dozen worn Near blank, stamped Liberty. Stoic chief And bison, once Almost extinct.

I treasure in silver The most tarnished: glory to Survival. Passing History on, repopulating As stampeding buf falos. 

So Close

On that night, High above skyscrapers And f alse light, I construct my mind From paper.

Though to ball it up, Forgetting a present Of animosity Would only echo itself .

Such records Must take the f orm Of birds, deliberate and Intricate f olds Soon f licked away.

Though that abyss below Takes to its diaphragm, Conjuring a gale Laughing in dismay.

The plane picks up That drunken sway, Dipping down f rom My hollow heart, Of f course.

At this height, I haven’t a care Of its location, only that It came so close. 

A Journal of Undergraduate Research at ECU

The Lookout