The Oak Trees In Drag
By John McKernan


Wear ice

With spots of snow



Wave their black claws

Whistle hisses

Into the wind



What is Samuel Beckett

Doing in this forest? Doing even in this poem?

Nothing he whispers

Nothing Nothing Nothing



When I am dead After Not before

I want a spiffy oak coffin

Fabricated with wood & nails

From an abandoned grade school classroom

But I want it equipped with an EJECT button


- - -
John McKernan is now a retired comma herder He lives – mostly – in West Virginia where he edits ABZ Press His most recent book is a selected poems Resurrection of the Dust He specialized in depleted semicolons and the repair and recovery of derelict exclamation points.