Omen

Outside, and without warning,
the inexplicable raised its ugly
head. The temperature went,
again, and the sun went too:
all south. And wouldn’t you
know a single dark crow was
sitting on a gravestone like
a vicious monument to patience,
mocking sleep, as if the world
needed more cheap significance.
All night through the woods
rain made the same sullen song
because the world had drunk
and drunk and drunk it in. All
the bottles are empty: all the
storm clouds have given up.
You are not yourself a form
of truth. You are drowning but
knowing so will not help you.


Joseph Campana is the author of The Book of Faces (Graywolf, 2005) and is completing a manuscript entitled Sheltering Bough. His poems appear in Slate, Boston Review, Conjunctions, New England Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Prairie Schooner, Poetry, TriQuarterly and elsewhere. He is the recipient of a fellowship from the NEA and teaches Renaissance literature at Rice University.


Poet’s Recommendation:

Above the River: The Complete Poems by James Wright