For Wendell

 

In the Kentucky soil
and in your work
the search for meaning
………has dirt
under its fingernails,
comes to rest nightly,
………only nightly,
like an axe leaning against the barn,
worn to the point of needing fixing.

Or like a duck landing
on the pond at dusk-
a splash then a murmur
of sunlight rippling outward,
how revelation works.

 

 

 

Michael J. Galko is a scientist and poet who lives and works in Houston, TX. Both his science and his poetry explore wound healing and pain. He has poems recently published or forthcoming in Poetry WTF!?, Right-Hand Pointing, The Broadkill Review, The Mojave River Review, Picaroon, The Rockvale Review, Gargoyle, Gulf Coast, and descant.