Poem: Soil prophet

Soil prophet

Patrick T. Reardon

 

And One-Cent dreamed a river of iron,

a lake of steel, gleaming and cold.

 

     Bread to eat, clothing to wear.

Come, let us buy bricks to tower the plain.

 

My name explodes past the walls

of my teeth. I tally dry summer dust. I

keep an eye out.

 

And One-Cent saw mud and lightning,

rain, snow and tree sap,

and electric earth matter.

 

At the ward yard, Foreman grips a secret pain.

Coroner wants a new building.

Woe to Comptroller, her pride.

 

     First born, second born.

 

And One-Cent saw blood on the snow,

rat-strewn feathers. Innocent red.

 

My twin made the metal move, knowing he

was not permitted to scream, mouth

sewn shut except for the barrel.

 

In the place of the eagle, cacti as

bright as a cathedral chalice, ruby

thorns glinting, Native wore a mantle

like the sun. This was when it was

still night.

 

     Toe to heel stride.

 

And behold: A rebel from the womb,

a scout of living things — dogs, people, the

black pig, the brown bear, the spotted cow,

heron and wren, python, centipede, flea.

A soil prophet.

 

And One-Cent — while the White Monks

processed all afternoon the streets in

Brighton Park — rode refugee melodies,

floated on fractured airs, jigged and

jagged along the walls of a mighty fortress.

Empty of sensation, a rodent’s breath.

Captive of otters.

 

Sang the bone-lace song in his hairshirt.

 

The White Monks chanted Dixit Dominus,

nations judged, fertile land filled with

destruction, skulls shattered in the land

of the many.

 

A priest forever, One-Cent drank deeply

the ram horn blood.

 

Patrick T. Reardon

2.22.26

 

This poem originally appeared in Book of Matches Literary Journal, Issue 14, Spring 2025