about the author
Christian Anton Gerard’s a woodworker and the author of Holdfast (C&R Press, 2017) and Wilmot Here, Collect for Stella (WordTech, 2014). He’s received Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference scholarships and was a 2017 Best of the Net finalist. Gerard is an associate professor in the creative writing program at the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith. Find him on the Web at christianantongerard.com and also at
facebook.com/PoetmadeWoodworksand
Books/.
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One Poem
Christian Anton Gerard
Drove out last night to see
that red light 4-way sits outside town
flashing like that vein under my wrist
you could see in the dark with your own.
There’s that one night the river trail turned
toward the tracks and your wrist
crossed what mighta been a dotted yellow
line if we were cars on a quarter mile,
but that night there weren’t no race,
no headlights making out the meeting place,
every engine running case the cops ran out.
That night, before night, almost night you were
talking bout the sunset on the river and I was
working hard to pretend our little fingers were
accidentally like that 4-way stop—neither of us turning.