Grant Moser
2024 Michelle Boisseau Prize Finalist
—
“Mint Green”
in the winter i am close to myself;
bloodborne & soundproofed as
a murmur beneath a tightening
pillow.
hollowed-out tree trunks remind
me of my childhood and that re-
minds me of mountain-top strip
mining and the verdant hue of its
rivulets, dissecting the valley fill
with warm vein movement. the
layers furrow into each other, in
penance for their dark places and
made-up lives, like possums playing
dead to each other.
silence is bought with things you
don’t want to trade, but that you
will. i am sequestered amid every
thing like the mustard seed in the
field: loam-ridden & hulled. it is so
nice to breathe thinned air.
the forest is bare but the river is
flinty and a verb, full of silver &
clean knives. i snap in the moon
time like green wood like brittle
tea like clambering in the dark.
Grant Moser lives in central New Jersey where he is a stay-at-home dad. This is his second publication; his first poem appeared in The Dewdrop. Visit grantmoser.com
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