Decade

Through the empty dirt lot
by the plant he walked,
towards the quiet street
and the cemetery beyond.

Above, in the deep, blue sky,
the white trail of a jet, silent, lengthened,
passed overhead, then drifted into
the distance of the new decade.

In the still, morning air,
in the trees beyond the railroad tracks he walked,
the cry of doves surprising
with their echo of his mute pain.

Stiff-legged, funereal, he reluctantly walked,
along the tracks, a victim
of perpetual movement,
finding that in either direction
the iron path had no bounds
and that whatever choice he made
would be no decision at all.

J. B. Hogan has a four-story e-book, Near Love Stories, now online at Cervena Barva Press (www.cervenabarvapress.com). He also has over forty-five stories and thirty poems in such journals as: Word Catalyst, Istanbul Literary Review, Cynic Online Magazine, Admit 2 (forthcoming), Every Day Fiction, Every Day Poetry, Ranfurly Review, Dead Mule, The Scruffy Dog Review, Smokebox, Aphelion, Rumble, The Swallow’s Tail, Poesia, Bewildering Stories, Avatar Review, Copperfield Review, Ascent Aspirations, Megaera, The Pedestal Magazine, Dogwood Journal, Mastodon Dentist, Poets Against War, The Square Table, Raving Dove, Mobius, and Viet Nam Generation. He lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Find more by J. B. Hogan in the Author Index.

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