by George Bishop

WEATHERVANE

Heading southeast
it finally refused
the other winds,
not even the slightest
departure—without notice
the carriage bogged down
in a bed of rust
and the driver and his horse
began to chip
and gray.

No more
the sharp turns
of sky , the idea
of dodging a star
or dealing with the
act of a god—the last
message it received
was off the sea,
laced in salt.
All those voices
going down,
imagination
rising up, mounting
the backs of rain.

GOSPEL

“That’s What Happens When It Happens”
–an unknown child

Not something you want
to tell your wife, say, when
you pick a night to announce
you’re no longer in love
with her. With children,

however, it’s something
you can sweetly turn
into a song, like having
a church appear in both
hands, complete with
people and steeple
and doors you can
even control yourself.

Your wife will want
to know more, more
than you know yourself.
The only thing that resembles
magic by then is heartbreak
and its mercurial conversion
to hate. Your hands are useless
now. Your church is empty.

That’s what happens,
if it happens. Next time
you’re careful about believing
something that seems to rhyme—
like hymns or sex.

George Bishop was raised on the Jersey Shore before moving to Florida where he now lives and writes. Recent work has appeared in Philadelphia Stories, Grasslimb Journal, Off The Coast and The Write Room. His chapbook, Love Scenes, was released by Finishing Line Press in November 2009.