John Stupp
Last night
the night of June 30th
before the feast of the Precious Blood of Christ
my father came to me in a dream
and said they were making steel in heaven -
the metal splattering
hammer driven
ear shattering noise
louder than the Ohio River foaming in its spark shower
over the Emsworth dam
after a month of rain
ruptured the ground's deep artery
So on the way to work
I saw
wind-blown drops butting low clouds like a dagger
and the moon rising like an angel
through the air's flesh
pulled taut to the cold horizon
and-
the cracked world packed in coal buses
coal trains
coal trucks
blacker than the souls of the dead
stretching without end
Last night
the night of June 30th
before the feast of the Precious Blood of Christ
my father came to me in a dream
and said they were making steel in heaven-
but at 3 AM in our valley
the only sound
was the Ohio River bursting over the Emsworth Dam
in it's hot metal flow to West Virginia
like surf boiling over a breakwall-
like the sound of a machete slicing stars
Copyright (c) 2007 by John Stupp
John Stuppwas born in 1949 in Cleveland, Ohio. He was educated at Notre Dame University, The University of British Columbia and Case Western Reserve University. His poetry has appeared in The Seattle Review, Chelsea, Bits, The Pittsburgh Quarterly, 5AM, The Pennsylvania Review, Prism International and other regional magazines. A chapbook entitled "The Blue Pacific" was published in 2007 by Main Street Rag press. He is married with two children and lives in Sewickley, Pennsylvania.