Myth and Mundane
by David M. Alper
A city in which Dantes and Ovids walk among us,
their words static patterns in the air.
Afternoons pop open, pomegranates,
seeds spilling into light and thunder.
Neighbors greet each other flesh slapped to flesh,
anointing the forehead with crimson constellations.
I float between sky and earth
and watch as flames munch on the skeleton of a barn.
A birch tree contorts—a wrestler, then prophet, then warrior.
Its arms reach for the gods that have forsaken it;
sirens scream in Greek chorus.
Here, we are caught between myth and mundane,
our stories written in smoke and skin.
David M. Alper's work appears in The McNeese Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, Hawai'i Pacific Review, and elsewhere. He is an educator in New York City.