Adam Tavel

The Harrow Plow

Each spring it sank a little further down
beneath the apple tree where we would stand
and pitch those sour globes to feel them burst
against a bat we could barely swing.
Convinced it was a spacecraft run aground
no matter what my cousins said, their hands
held up to show streaking stains of rust,
I climbed atop and imagined wings
on either side to captain its decay.
Hologram commanders relayed the psalms
from girls on planets doomed, penning pleas
for heroes from the stars. My proton rays
blew aliens apart, just like my palms
which split the day I bashed that wreckage free.

Author: Adam Tavel

Adam Tavel is the author of five books of poetry, including two new collections: Green Regalia (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2022) and Sum Ledger (Measure Press, 2022). His third book, Catafalque, won the Richard Wilbur Award (University of Evansville Press, 2018). His recent poems appear in North American Review, Ploughshares, The Georgia Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Ninth Letter, The Massachusetts Review, Copper Nickel, and Western Humanities Review, among others. You can find him online at http://adamtavel.com/

Plume: Issue #68 March 2017