a little something.
Tip of a bare branch,
black-shingled roof,
momentary starling,
brief flutter.
Invisible all the rest.
Put your cheek on the glass.
A tunnel
is dark.
Exit at either end,
autumnal dusk.
Up: floating parade,
geese honking by,
off north,
slate sky,
no trees or roofs.
Down: open field,
goose and goslings hunch,
eating grass.
Gander, the lookout,
neck a periscope,
looking for trouble.
Jeffrey Kingman lives by the Napa River in Vallejo, California. His poetry collection, BEYOND THAT HILL I GATHER, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2021. His poetry chapbook, ON A ROAD, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2019. He is the winner of the 2018 Eyelands Book Award (Greece) for an unpublished poetry book, a finalist in the 2018 Hillary Gravendyk poetry book competition, and was long listed for the 2025 ONLY POEMS Poet of the Year Prize. He has poems published in BlazeVOX, PANK, Clackamas Literary Review, Action Spectacle, and others. Jeffrey is a copy editor at Omnidawn Publishing. He has a master’s degree in music composition.
