I am haunted by the hollow cheeks
that sat stunned behind these stones
and watched hunger turn itself into everything.

I’m convinced nothing is ever just itself.
The ragged brow of roof left over from the last
Atlantic blast persuaded me the old had caved-in here.

For want of a few stony vegetables to ration,
while winter and sea split the land, their bodies
ate them. Their young sewed a few pounds into their coats.

The wind leapt over the wall and rifled
the rank grass wave on wave. The crow caw
from the hawthorn wrenched into the creaking of ship wood.

A shapeliness grew and turned to
disfigurement. The land became its own
shrunken dead. Another vessel slid on its ferrous belly

over glass-colored waves carrying
an outlander back here to lean on
a piled wall, staring into the open heart of this cold room.  

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Ron Houchin, born in California, was raised in West Virginia from the age of three and has lived for the past thirty years on the banks of the Ohio in South Point, Ohio. During that thirty years he taught literature, composition, creative writing at Fairland High School. His books include: Death and the River, Moveable Darkness, and Greatest Hits (chapbook from Pudding House Press). Museum Crows, is due out from Salmon next year. Wind Publications is publishing his first book-length American collection, Among Wordless Things, in October.
E-mail: ronhouchin_99 at yahoo dot com  

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