ARROWHEAD

The bifacial point, found in a potato

Field in Maine, is still sharp,

A Micmac weapon or crafted heart

Knapped from the whole cloth of stone.

Flint’s a slap in the face, elegist

Relic only as long as you look.

Says: crow shadow and opaque.

Adds: I will exist without witness

John J. Ronan was a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow in Poetry, 1999-2000. His first book, Marrowbone Lane, appeared in 2009 (Backwaters Press). Ronan’s poems have appeared in Confrontation, Folio, Threepenny Review, Hollins Critic, New England Review, Southern Poetry Review, Louisville Review, Greensboro Review, Notre Dame Review, NYQ, and elsewhere.