Under the Moon

By Nedra Rogers

of Yellow Leaves Falling,
a ghost buffalo grazes in the shadow
of the white man’s totem pole,
a monument of porcelain toilets,
eight in all, stacked one upon another
outside the City Library.

Inside the City Library,
in the cushioned section where the homeless
sleep beneath florescent Moons
When Tree Limbs are Broken by Snow,
you can smell the firewater.

From Biography you catch the scent.
From Reference you can hear him breathe.
At the magazine rack you gaze
past the cover of Audubon to see
that his hair is the color of wet ravens,
that it spills like water over his shoulders.

At 8:50 the security guard nudges him.
The Library closes in ten minutes.
You linger at New Fiction to see if he will rise,
and when he doesn’t, you think you’d like to lift him
from the chair and carry him out of history,
south on Washington to the fog of the wetlands,
where the buffalo who follows you
might join his herd at the Wakarusa.

– Rogers is a Lawrence poet and winner of the poetry prize in this year’s Langston Hughes Creative Writing contest.