George David Clark

REVEILLE WITH KAZOO

Out of pink and orange moth-ash,
out of the bottled ghost ship,
out of the lopsided bird's nest of sleep,
wake up.
           Your shoelaces knot themselves
out of boredom. The scent of rain-delayed
softball like smoke in your hair.
Now the emissaries of night are baled and burning,
a light that wants in your pockets
like money. Wake up from the torpors
of cat fur, from the lingerie catches
of lead. The swimming pools of the future
are born this morning and swaddled in sun-lust,
pamphlets announcing new flavors
of ice cream are loosed on the city
in a blitz of sugar, and under the bridge
an angel spray-paints her own wings.

George David Clark's poems can be found reprinted elsewhere online at Verse Daily and Poetry Daily. He teaches creative writing and literature as a Lilly Fellow at Valparaiso University and is the editor of 32 Poems. "Reveille With Kazoo" first appeared in Quarterly West.