Peter Ramos
Wrong season, wrong daylight but still
your turn, your time to fluff the wheat field,
dry up the corn & brittle it, to let down your clothes.
There are temporary ends to hope, Autumn,
dust lover. Make this a new beginning,
cruel colors and some sun to sting
the heart, long walks where leaves
in the shallows give up their sudden
but familiar scent, worn as an old down
comforter, ancient drowsy-maker:
death, a flex of dusk, a pause
and blue smoke above the wicks.
***
Peter Ramos’s poems have appeared in New World Writing, Colorado Review, Puerto del Sol, Painted Bride Quarterly, Verse, Indiana Review, Mississippi Review (online), elimae, Mandorla, and other journals. Nominated several times for a Pushcart Prize, Peter is the author of two books of poetry, Please Do Not Feed the Ghost (BlazeVox Books, 2008), and Lord Baltimore (Ravenna Press 2021), as well as three shorter collections. He is also the author of one book of literary criticism: Poetic Encounters in the Americas: Remarkable Bridge (Routledge, 2019). As associate professor of English at Buffalo State College, Peter teaches courses in nineteenth- and twentieth-century American literature.