Artwork © Eric N. Peterson

 

View from Covid August

Where do August evenings go?
They loll, and they loll
Somewhere amidst sharp, overgrown
green-white drought grass
Somewhere amidst the little girls
speeding a bit up river path –
They flicker and they crash –
For the sun’s sabers are breathing hard,
as a jaguar chases a lamb’s supple neck

—

But lo! With tinted glasses,
things look a little better,
we must be in for better weather!
The sun will not spike us in our sleep,
amidst a wave of lung-flood
The lamb will not be awakened
by the jaguar’s fangs ripping into fleshy neck
And the Fall will not send us, like Ethan Hawley,
walking ever deeper into the tarry,
unctuous ocean

 

Peter F. Crowley is a Boston-area author. His first book, Those Who Hold Up the Earth, was published by Kelsay Books this June. Recently, he has completed edited the upcoming satirical book Typical Gypsy by Kosovan-Romani rights activist Dzafer Buzoli. Peter’s writings can be found in Boston Literary Magazine, Counterpunch, Opiate Magazine, Antiwar.com, Truthout and Visitant, among other publications. He’s finishing up his first novel depicting rebellion, coming of age, and corporate pulse-death.

Eric N. Peterson is from Atlanta, Ga. He’s been drawing cartoons all his life. He leans towards the absurd, imaginative, and the surreal, as that’s where all the flavor is.