Charles Rafferty

Royalty

The dew across the lawn is sparkling like a smashed tiara. The trees are filling with a bird confusion. This is our coronation. We must greet it now, embrace it. You will not have left me if I can reach you before the entire tower is cast in light. That's the kind of pronouncement I like to make. Thus, I am wading into the moat, heading for the spot where the stones have formed a finger hold. The mud is black, and the crocodiles haven't eaten in weeks. The terrible light crawls down to me as if it were a blade.

 

Charles Rafferty has published poems in The New Yorker, Prairie Schooner, and The Southern Review. His tenth collection of poems is The Unleashable Dog (Steel Toe Books). His collection of flash fictions is Saturday Night at Magellan's (Fomite Press). Currently, he directs the MFA program at Albertus Magnus College.