the roadkill strung on the main drag
double as royal flush when the vultures
join it becomes a catholic mass the frogs
are ceremonial masters vying
for singular spotlight the gulls are
are not are too are not are tooing through the pines
who leak the secret they once fringed a throw
used once to cover a cloud jagged death
etch-a-sketched and schmooze
with the yogurt sky no the sky is a prayer
swooped in cursive of foreign tongue the sugarcane
fields a place mat for the close moon
the linchpin oil rig prevents the wheeling
marsh from unhinging an armadillo slumped
looks like a sopped towel tossed after a long shower
the propped moon the negative
of a redfish tail’s onyx-eye the bugs gripped
in the porch screen is a girl’s leaked mascara
I say bomb shelter to the hollowed crab carcass I say teeth
to the coon trap sharp with wait I say safe
zone to the empty bucket or widowed locks to the spines
of trash fish no the moon propped
before midnight looks like a bullet hole
through the negative of a yield signyield sign
Originally from Louisiana’s Gulf Coast, Nicholas now lives and writes in Cincinnati. His chapbook, Goodness Gracious, won Foundlings Press’s 2018 Wallace Award. His forthcoming second chapbook will be part of Foundlings Press’s Strays series. You can find his poetry and prose in Birmingham Poetry Review, The Cincinnati Review, DIAGRAM, Mississippi Review, Missouri Review, Ninth Letter, and Pleiades among others