top of page

Winter '24

JACOB STRAUTMANN

Why are you lying
Under the big summer trees
     In your flock of blood creeping?

I lie here, at rest,
On the side of the path
      Where the sky is green threatening—


But you sang no more
As wing slapped wing
       In some far away marsh


And a snake, I was sure—
Fixed an eye on the cause
       Of the moss


Buckled her green to the shade,
Told me what was come,
       Though it caught between


My brain and your blood
Forking never again
       Through lindens pale.

​

​

​

​

​

​

Jacob Strautmann's debut book of poems The Land of the Dead Is Open for Business is available from Four Way Books, and his second book New Vrindaban is forthcoming in Fall 2024. Strautmann’s poems have appeared in The Boston Globe, The Appalachian Journal, Southern Humanities Review, and Blackbird: www.jacobstrautmann.com.   

bottom of page