By Ryan Harper
The sound realized in firm,
vague mileage: we considered healthy
inspire and unwind, faithful and fair
from mainland to Long Island,
splints of late light dressing
the four towers for the golden
hours: life away from the bones
stuck snuffed in the distant sand.
Casually this totemic, the water’s imminent
geometers: from a far haven taking
our industry in sealed estate, vacated
as the four stacks, vast and silent: outlain
riders stock-still in cold salute—
conquering, to conquer the sound,
the gilded coast: we exhausted
retire, believing our ends carried out.
About the Author:
Ryan Harper is an Assistant Professor of the Practice at Fairfield University-Bellarmine in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He is the author of My Beloved Had a Vineyard, winner of the 2017 Prize Americana in poetry (Poetry Press of Press Americana, 2018). Some of his recent poems and essays have appeared in Coachella Review, Heartwood Literary Journal, Appalachian Review, Citron Review, Fourteen Hills, and elsewhere. Ryan is the creative arts editor of American Religion Journal.