Ryan Quinn Flanagan


‘Watch the bird, the story, which way he goes’

The moment is one of discovery, the text,
 of dusting glyph-lull deciphering;
the bodies are never enough, still natron-fragrant
and Osiris wrapped –
watch the bird, the story, which way he goes,
that beak a guiding compass while the workers 
toil outside, pulling shards from trembled sieve,
sharing brass ladles of water under a guiding
sweat-squint sun, working on the burial sites
of others while they wait on their own;
the modern city in the near-distance a constant
encroachment: of horns, of concrete, stylish 
vainglory amusements…	

The difference between past and present, 
one of timing, of ability.
New fingers run over old walls,
this painted ramshackle of long-planned silences.

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Otoliths, Poetry Bulawayo, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.

 
 

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