Broken Echoes

A child may manage
To sing
A small birdsong
On a small branch
Above a grave
Clamoring
With bone and ash
Within a flock of
Tombstones.

We’ll Make Fine Corpses

An old man’s skin blossoms
with faded tattoos, his wrinkles chisel into dust.
His flesh full of prayers sloughs
To join the dead
Unannounced
as ghosts steal the moon’s lies,
Tracing askance geometries of light.
How lovely the dead must be.

Patrick Meighan lives the life of a nomadic adjunct, teaching poetry, journalism, and composition courses at New England College, Saint Anselm College, and Manchester Community College. His poems, reviews, and translations have appeared in online and print journals, and his second chapbook “Poems for a Winter Afternoon” was published in 2018. He is the co-editor of “Images from Ruin,” an anthology of 9/11 poems and art, and his first chapbook “Jurisprudence” was published in 2014. He earned his MFA in creative writing from the low-residency program at New England College in 2013.