by Jonathan Travelstead

He flits along the cliff’s severe angles

                                                               like a Lite-Brite salmon

channeling fiber optic cable,

                                                             or a house printer laying a course

of new brick. He one-eighties

                                                               a sandstone promontory, returns

to a rocky bald overlooking

                                                         the Mississippi river valley. I Am.

The cease word toggles

                                                               his wheels’ pale glow to sleep.

When the sun’s ruby diode

                                                           powers down he witnesses its discharge

beneath serpentine water.

                                                         Fire within an igloo dying

down to wet coals.

                                                 How the field floods with electrons.

Jonathan Travelstead served in the Air Force National Guard for six years as a firefighter and currently works as a full-time firefighter for the city of Murphysboro, IL. Having finished his MFA at Southern Illinois University of Carbondale, he now works on an old dirt-bike he hopes will one day get him to the salt flats of Bolivia. He has published work in The Iowa Review, on Poetrydaily.com, and has work forthcoming in The Crab Orchard Review, among others. His first collection How We Bury Our Dead by Cobalt/Thumbnail Press was released in March, 2015.

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