by Henry Hughes

A great blue heron

aims its gold lance.

Stab, flip and tip—

something silvery

slides to the gullet.

Car doors slam.

Startled grawk,

wings yarded,

dragon flapping

over our damp heads

on the city’s

marshy edge,

waiting for a guy

we don’t like

to get us high.

Henry Hughes is the author of four poetry collections, including Men Holding Eggs, which received the Oregon Book Award. He is the editor of four Everyman’s Library anthologies, a regular book reviewer for Harvard Review, and the director of Write Place: Literature, Arts & the Environment.