Prick of the Spindle: Poetry: Engel: A Sense of Truth

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© Cynthia Reeser, Femme Fatale

A Sense of Truth
By Joe Engel

There is a bell ringing
Between the stallion’s
Teeth at noon,

As green hills hide
Their shadows and stand up
To the sky. I see their patience

While the sun invokes a sharpness
In the smell of pine
Behind me, slapping

Back dreams like actors;
Ether phasing out
A window… Now

Drops of water hold
Light on wet leaves, breathe
Toward boiling points, fire

Fused the way the world casts
Out darkness on a desert;
Whore of light as certain

As the seasons catch and bare
Each day’s muddy tongue
And newfound teeth

In a glove of colorful scraps,
A collage of fallen
Stars in the dumpster, it’s true

There is a bell ringing
Between the stallion’s
Teeth at noon.

Joe Engel currently lives in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where he looks for work as an editor. He studied English literature at the University of Wisconsin La Crosse and got to know the campus well working as a janitor. His poems have been published in Steam Ticket and Apples and Oranges.