~ Delta Poetry Review ~

Kenton K. Yee

Mississippi Lights

Luck demands less

maligned.

Auspices, financing; boggles

reveal rights. Sober

reveals the eye.

Employees, arguably,

tied to rights.

Reentering,

they see only horizons.

Already anxious, churlish

out-of-focus.

Winners could be real; losers

could be grouped. Then

a problem:

Needs. Conflicts.

Another issue: sins may

misidentify.

Regardless,

we must figure out how

to figure out why.

Stunt becomes atmosphere,

casino noise.

What does this leave?

What reveals?

Dauphin Island

The gulf is surging surf and quake,

blue turned yellow, magenta to heat,

defects bearing mites afloat

on curly languid lobs of hair

atop a dudette diving a bomb,

spitting curses only waves can hear

of vapor rising through dander flakes

thickening meniscus of lapping tides

and Eddie would go—his short, quick strokes

scrolling frame by frame inside mind’s eye

until reflections like flames titter

flouncing holy grace and error

of boarders wiped and bearings born.

Gumbo

A fellow tenant in my complex

posted photos of fire ants

in our soil

with a caption meant

not to express amazement but to sound alarm

even as feathered and buzzing predators

swarm our courtyard

eating crumbs left out for them

and drawing our blood.

Why no captions then

like “We’ve got crawdads!”

and “Time for nets!”?

Happiness is

a bowl and not a belly

full of gumbo.

Kenton K. Yee studied at LSU (Baton Rouge), taught at Columbia University, and attended the Iowa Summer Poetry Workshop and the Key West Literary Seminar. He recently placed poetry in The Threepenny Review, The Indianapolis Review, Ligeia Magazine, Plume Poetry, Summerset Review, and Gyroscope Review, among others. Now back home in California, Kenton misses Louisiana jazz, crawdads and gumbo.

Email: kenton@alumni.stanford.edu