SYLVAN LEBRUN

Nightsong on the pastures

let your eyes trace the holy spectacle that is the work of man.

that is the work of the worms that eat man

and the fear that they inspire.

with all of this, we don’t need instruction manuals

we don’t need burning bushes

we don’t need dawn!

in the river that snakes along

the four-lane highway to the airport, packed and bustling with rot

stadium lights from a high school baseball game

reflect and look like stars, the water trembles

the weight is too heavy, screams and hand-clap songs

and the way that we’ve finally managed to beat out the moon.

I want, for a moment, to see what would happen

if I sat on my knees in the damp shrapnel-gravel

bringing mouthfuls of the black and iridescent water to my lips

as the road above me sinks into the sea

metal horses at play, suddenly

all rushing to drink beside my form, we herald new ages

as the pastures full of angels, the ones, you know

that grow on bushes instead of trees

scratching at their bulbs, churning with fragrance,

they find themselves under a humid summer rain

which they drink in to themselves politely.

off to cross the set of cracked wooden planks that sound like divinity

or just like an empty parking lot —

who cares, watch them head to the fruit-market

where last week I bought a mango that was so unworldly and sweet.

Sylvan Lebrun is a student, writer, and musician living in Tokyo, Japan. Her work has been previously published in Up the Staircase Quarterly, CONSTRUCTION, The Hunger, and Shirley Magazine, among others.