May 5th, 2026 - K.E. Duffin

The Vanishings

Citronella seas with cinder wisp
in a bucket the color of distant storms
where flame bends like a buffeted ship
about to be swamped; the blackened forms
are curlicue and hieroglyph.
Cardinals range to the north of pines,
where willow timbres of the wrens drift.
Hammering beyond the property lines
is the carpentry of hours: barns are whacked
and fold like flimsy tents, a cotton gin
is oxidized, and further back,
in ferrous suede of the scuffed hills, tin
glistens among the white cloths
that flutter like a fluke of moths.

“K.E. Duffin’s work has appeared in Agni, The Carolina Quarterly, The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, Innisfree Poetry Journal, The Main Street Rag, Poetry, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, Scintilla, Slant, Southern Poetry Review, Third Wednesday, and other journals. New poems are forthcoming in Arderyth House, The MacGuffin, and New Verse Review. King Vulture, a book of poems, was published by the University of Arkansas Press.”