GRAIN MOON


Chaff on the threshing room floor.
There is always waste. It’s always
creeping up around our ankles. With
every reaping, a sweeping. Cels

on the cutting room floor. We only
keep the scenes we can seamlessly
splice together, only the stream
of images that fools us into narrative,

tricks us away from fits and starts. In
the early days of the great harvest,
we take the grain under this tawny
moon—lit feldspar for the oxwain.

John A. Nieves has published in journals such as Beloit Poetry Journal, Western Humanities Review, Crazyhorse, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Poetry Daily, and Cream City Review. His first book, Curio, won the Elixir Press Annual Poetry Award Judge’s Prize and is due out in early 2014. Nieves is an Assistant Professor of English at Salisbury University.