Philip Byron Oakes lives in Austin, Texas. His work has appeared in numerous journals, including Otoliths, Switchback, Cricket Online Review, Sawbuck and Taiga. His first book, Cactus Land (77 Rogue Letters), is forthcoming and should be out in late 2008 or early 2009.
The shape of things to come as
you are. The iridescent arc, of the
salamander’s leap from the cold
passion of the cave, building
bridges meeting water halfway.
Concisely statuesque. The
mollycoddlers, in their paisley
mumus, consensually rising like
turbid floodwaters, in grievous
allegiance to the wholesome
charm of the long missing link.
The swift courses in algebra,
leaving the boat people to grasp
at logarithms. A house of
common gestures. As you rise
above an upbringing, to sink that
serpentine putt on the 18th hole
of a Russian novel. An
intermission in the gravity of
existence. The penultimate, if
only this once.
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