Skyler Osborne

TEN ACRE SONG

From this distance, I won’t know you.
I don’t care about the names of the trees
swaying. That branch fell like a calling.

Kill the insects. Kill the birds.
Hit the sunlight; fuck the world.
The sadness is in my hair,

my teeth—my meaninglessness
in my wooden chair. In October,
I will change.

I will put the words down.
Sinkholes,       dreamwars,
deer   scatter   infinitely.

A moth folds herself into the mulch.
Carry me from comfort to comfort.
The neighbor kid laughs toward us
with a hatchet.

SKYLER OSBORNE is the author of Rejoicer (Driftwood Press, 2023). He received an MFA from the Michener Center for Writers in Austin, Texas.