Caleb Braun

The World as Still and Seasonless


still time keeps speaking and speaking the sun
on its sling above the horizon
shadows imperceptivity lengthening
the fractals of branches staying exactly 
where they are but darkening
darkening until they too are shadows
and that the world to me
metonymy is just that selfish
the elms with their branches waving
like my mother’s hair except darker
and actually nothing like that at all
and still they stay darkening inside me like
grief should as I brace myself
with these plane trees like ghosts for the night
and the wind which I should know
by now will not let up here
will wake you right in place
and when I say the world
I mean mine
and when I say death
I mean whoever’s I’ve already seen

Caleb Braun earned an MFA in poetry from the University of Washington, where he received the Harold Taylor Prize. He is a PhD student in creative writing at Texas Tech University. His poems have appeared and are forthcoming in The Gettysburg Review, 32 Poems, Image, Blackbird, Cherry Tree, and elsewhere. He can be found online at calebbraun.com.