Refractory
spastic filter of branches

catching dusk clouds 

 

side-swiping indiscriminate thru 

a line of others more distinct in their 

 

trajectory—

then the obstructed lengths 

 

unpossessing downhill too, or the 

bristly blind of snow up to Here

 

that’ll curb your cigarette break bound 

by slush overlooked too, and the dirty 

 

distillation of static that’ll obscure all 

the breakup songs to come 

 

straining from car’s radio 

for you to love thru

Stageworks

together enamored as a kind of 

agreement 

 

of carpentry conditions 

having to trust in 

 

order 

for it to really work—

 

the thing’s going 

to be built anyway, but/so

 

we all have our ideas 

of the exact fixtures 

 

to add in once we 

get thru 

 

tolerating their 

vocal simplicities 

 

& validating their 

pure gold—

 

however we decide 

to estrange ourselves

 

we’ll watch the colloquial 

come undone

 

Hanging Around

you’ve all devoured eternities, and rightly so—

not out of necessitation, 

but the lack of necessitation you dread;  don’t worry, 

all things will act stale 

& others won’t take for a time, but as often 

as makes sense, unexpected 

Februaries will present themselves interchangeably;

there’ll be towns to make you lenient, and friends 

who were never supposed to come back, 

while thru each cold-bracing & hand-warming

& boot-stomping readiness, not long 

after tiredness & forgetfulness, dusting off your car 

for the last time, you’ll be 

whining about the heat

 

__________

Colin Webb is a native of Baltimore, Maryland. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in White Wall Review, Apeiron Review, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, The Northern Virginia Review, and elsewhere, and he has been a finalist for The Arch Street Prize.