Joseph L. Dahut is an MFA candidate in Poetry at New York University whose work has appeared in The Drake, Tail Magazine, and The Sand Canyon Review, among others. Joseph lives in Brooklyn as an educator, poet, and fly fishing guide.

The Old Yard

ply
      of birch
  bark    peels

into      lattice
    of        moon.

between   light
      grates,    I    read

cursive
	impressioned

in the wood. If     you
		  breathe slow

enough, you      become
a porch 		swing

               singing     slow    creeks
in southern   wind.

the space    beneath
	ghost & dream

chokes the      seams
     rose    thorn    stoking

in the heat. If      you
		  nose the ground

like a 			    hound
             in         heat,

you 	      might 	  harvest
     the season’s         final        berries.

You          might           catch
        the               jaws

of	 moon		flower
    bloom.       But       If         you

stay
	awake      long      enough

to watch photographs
		          yellow into the frame,

then    the    wall,    then     the      house,  then
      you     might    become    your    ghost.