You were named for violence, chosen for a relentless assault on time, thousands of rings beyond this nation wrapping the world in flame and resistant foil. How many fire seasons have you watched over? How many migrations harbored, lost within the vacant eyes of bison skulls on sawgrass? Can you still scent the sea, its constancy, hunger and force? There is a comfort here among these trees, bringing me to size, pushing onward without love or myth, stretching beyond the shade we make across the path of the sun.

~~~

Jared Beloff is the author of Who Will Cradle Your Head (ELJ Editions, 2023). He is the editor of the Marvel inspired poetry anthology, Marvelous Verses (Daily Drunk, 2021) and has been a peer-reviewer for Whale Road Review since 2021. His work can be found at Night Heron Barks, Barren Magazine, River Mouth Review, The Shore, Contrary, and elsewhere. You can find him on Twitter @Read_Instead and see his website www.jaredbeloff.com.  He is a teacher who lives in Queens, NY with his wife and two daughters.