By Mercedes Lawry
He came out of the gray huddle,
an avalanche of a man,
broken and vast, without forgiveness.
He knew spit and strike,
choke and an eternal bad morning,
waste ticking in his bones.
He would wreck and dismiss,
needing no delusion, just
a scatter of coin which meant
Bread and bed and swerving cloud
of drink and so on again
until he fell, final and unremarked.
Copyright 2014 Lawry
Mercedes Lawry has had poems published in such journals as Poetry, Natural Bridge, Nimrod, and Prairie Schooner as well as SHARK REEF. She's published two chapbooks - “There are Crows in My Blood” and “Happy Darkness.” She was a finalist for the 2017 Airlie Press Prize and the 2017 Wheelbarrow Book Prize and has received the Vachel Lindsay Poetry Prize from Twelve Winters Press. Lawry has received honors from the Seattle Arts Commission, Jack Straw Foundation, Artist Trust and Richard Hugo House, been a seven-time Pushcart Prize nominee and held a residency at Hedgebrook. She's also published short fiction as well as stories and poems for children.
All work by Mercedes Lawry
