d. eRIC pARKISON
Selected Poems
d. eRIC pARKISON
Lost Fish
A long fish appeared in the shallow creek
Behind the house, in woods hemmed in
By cornfield, by an apple orchard. An oxbow,
Unfinished oxbow, almost made an island in the water.
From the island in the water we stalked the slick length
Of the carp as it pushed up and downstream with its tail,
We chased it back and forth, muddying the creek
As if the fish were the classmate we liked least.
Our rushing into the water, such a show:
The cold biting against our unshod feet, our shins—
But there again the undulating flank would draw us on,
Something else took over. It pitched between
Our positions, we reached in and grasped at water.
The carp would not tire, no matter our persistence.
We were dogged, scowling, angry with each other.
Eventually, we knew, we had to let it go.
D. Eric Parkison
Little Else
A sound
Where no
Sound was.
Little else.
Less silence
By an ounce.
One sound
Prods no
Sound how
One bulb
Probes dark
By light.
D. Eric Parkison received his MA from the University of Rochester and his MFA from Boston University. His chapbook, No Arcadia, was released in August of 2020. He is the recipient of a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council fellowship. He is director of programming at the Gloucester Writers Center and lives in Lynn, MA.
Featured in:
Red Rock Review
Issue 54
