top of page

OXIDANT | ENGINE : Issue 7

Devon Balwit

track 1

 

the cloud lodges

its claw.

 

bolted to bulk

and rust,

 

your heart

chuffs you farther.

 

dirty windows

blur

 

identical fields.

shacks

 

fix lonely

eyes on you.

 

they sidle closer

then away

 

like strays.

 

​

​

 

track 2

 

one blue wall halts

the suicide

 

who considers its facsimile

of sky, matching

 

the color

to an inner wheel,

 

an azure bead,

a childhood marble,

 

battlefield summers

reflected

 

in the eyes

of the fallen.

 

​

​

 

Track 4

 

crow enlists crow

to divebomb

 

my dog,

lolloping

 

the long field

after his ball.

 

he would never attack

their fledglings,

 

bred too dumb

to know

 

danger,

bred so meek

 

that, nightly,

he accepts

 

the fearsome pressure

of my body.

 

the crows

would do better

 

to turn talons

on me,

 

the truly

malevolent.

Devon on Haight 2018.JPG

Devon Balwit's most recent collection is titled A Brief Way to Identify a Body (Ursus Americanus Press). Her individual poems can be found in The Cincinnati Review, Fifth Wednesday (on-line), apt, Grist, and Rattle among others. For more on her book and movie reviews, chapbooks, poetry collections and individual works, see her website at:  https://pelapdx.wixsite.com/devonbalwitpoet

bottom of page