What Follows

Robert Okaji, Poem

His hand can't collect what he finds at daybreak.
Traffic rumbling, pulses ticking and the
layered smells of dried leaves and last night's 
pizza. Her smile, in sleep. In ecstasy, even
while the week's tasks drain through his punctured
pockets and nothing deters memory and the never
was. Wondering why it took so long. How stress 
surrendered, and what follows. Perhaps I am, 
he thinks, justified in my actions. Like the red 
shouldered hawk ripping into the squirrel. Like 
last year's tornado. And all the broken trees.

Robert Okaji lives in Indiana. The author of multiple chapbooks, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in Vox Populi, riverSedge, The Big Windows Review, North Dakota Quarterly and elsewhere.