[There is nothing more to say]

Poetry by Peter Grandbois

You have been extinct for centuries

No dog can scout your wretched scent now

Darkness leaks long about your eye teeth

Words thicken to doors painted with lies

There is nothing more to say

Until a child builds a pillow house

Larger than the story of wind

And something opens through the weak hours

And something returns like a stone to the desert

And the voices in sleep cease like an old light

Get down on your knees and enter

Let the animals drink from your river

Peter Grandbois is the author of thirteen books, the most recent of which is the Snyder prize-winning, Last Night I Aged a Hundred Years (Ashland Poetry Press 2021). His poems, stories, and essays have appeared in over one hundred and fifty journals. His plays have been nominated for several New York Innovative Theatre Awards and have been performed in St. Louis, Columbus, Los Angeles, and New York. He is poetry editor at Boulevard magazine and teaches at Denison University in Ohio. You can find him at www.petergrandbois.com