by Madison Jones IV

Lying in the dark waters of that tub,
velvet drapes trimming the night
inside the golden facade
of the rue Beautreillis,
listening to the voices
drifting up from the Seine,
with the light already going
out of his dull eyes,
and another cigarette, perched
like the last link
of a short, broken circle
on his swollen belly, burning
like a candle lit at both ends, lies
the beardless shaman, with that deep,
death-rattle cough ringing
in his ears. Who knows
what he mumbled to himself?

M.P. Jones IV recently received a master’s in literature from Auburn University where he read for Southern Humanities Review. He is also founder and editor-in-chief of Kudzu House Quarterly, a journal of southern literature and environment. His poetry has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Painted Bride Quarterly, Harpur Palate, Portland Review, Tampa Review, Cumberland River Review, Canary Magazine, and Town Creek Poetry, among divers others; creative nonfiction has appeared in Sleet Magazine and decomP magazinE. His article on The Shadow of Sirius can be found in the current issue of Merwin Studies; book reviews in ISLE and Valparaiso Poetry Review. He is also the author of a poetry collection, Live at Lethe (Sweatshoppe Publications, 2013). He teaches first-year English and creative writing at Point University in West Point, GA. Visit his author’s page: ecopoiesis.com