Skip to content

Two Poems

by Patrick Bower

Adaptations

A Brindle Afghan disappears,
if she can manage to be still,

before a backdrop of shrubbery
like triggerfish into the sargassum

a jaguar into the understory
or a human into a plaza,

where hundreds are dancing,
swaying together or apart,

like the tentacles of a sea anemone
hypnotic, concealing harpoons.

 

Water Under the Bridge

Flat clouds of silver
iodine amalgam,

daguerreotype
sky and cable,

arch and rung,
buoyant atop river water,

the solutions we mix
beneath bridges,

the jumper’s illusion:
that the fall will

not kill him, only
open up heaven.

Patrick Bower lives in New York City, where he writes copy for a living. His poems have appeared in Wu Wei Fashion Mag, The Corner Club Press, 805 Lit, Sheila-Na-Gig, Lit.cat, and New York Dreaming.

Lead image: “anemone” (via Flickr user Laura Wolf)