SCARECROW
How’s it look? I ask,
slipping my arms into the sleeves
of the scarecrow’s battered coat.
Good, she says,
but I already know the truth,
and by portentous coincidence,
the sky has just turned the same
disquieting shade of gray
as various diseases of the mind.
I hold my arms out like so
and assume the somber expression,
including opalescent eyes,
of someone remembering something
he wished he didn’t,
children overtaken on the road
by claw-footed shadows,
regardless of ancient promises
and the shrill little cries of the sun.
Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of three poetry chapbooks, Death of the Frog Prince (2004) and Heartland (2007), both from FootHills Publishing, and Strangers & Angels (2007) from Scintillating Publications. He was recently nominated for the second time for a Pushcart Prize.