Postcards on the Existential Rack
of the Gift Shop in Palatka, Florida
Michael Dechane
Observing Silence
Many mornings a storm
inshore parboils
the bay to chalk and jade.
Salt mouth a moil
ten thousand frothy tongues
dither in chorus
without a thing to say.
Sunset Backlit Contrails
On the day’s diminishing
blue face planes lay open
hot peach blood wells up
in long thin beads.
They puff out
and soon recede
but trace a wounding
say what comes and who goes
in this late light erasure.
Red-winged Blackbird
Everything we have forgotten
but loved is alive. Still.
Fledged. Waiting. Watching us
from its own beautiful darkness.
A dip of the deep night
perched on a cattail stalk
bursts bearing twin undying suns.
Michael Dechane’s poetry has most recently appeared or is forthcoming in Image, Southern Poetry Review, Bellingham Poetry Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Tar River Poetry, Apalachee Review, and elsewhere. He was a finalist in Atlanta Review’s 2020 International Poetry Contest and the winner of Ruminate’s Broadside Poetry Prize in 2020. A native of Odessa, Florida, he currently resides in the Netherlands. Read more about his recent publications and creative collaborations at michaeldechane.com/poetry.