After Peter Sacks.

In those days we kept goats. Hands twisted
like stringed instruments. My
tongue clattered. The saints

of chamber music drew in one long
breath. Sweet juice dribbled from around
their O-mouths. They sussed out

a dwindled spirit. They cocked
at odd mammals skimming the Danube.
Miracles performed themselves.

The city was invented. A red mouth opened
in heaven. Actual oaks and stone branches
mingle into a tower. Hills creep closer

among the premodern dusk. I began to
thresh riverbanks. Lonely shepherds assailed
me. And there were many cages.

*

Connor Fisher is the author of the chapbooks The Hinge (Epigraph Magazine, 2018) and Speculative Geography (Greying Ghost Press, forthcoming 2020). He has an MFA from the University of Colorado at Boulder and a Ph.D. in Creative Writing and English from the University of Georgia. His poetry and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in Typo, the Colorado Review, Tammy, Posit, Cloud Rodeo, and the Denver Quarterly.