K.E. Duffin

King Vulture was a winner in the 2004 University of Arkansas Press Poetry Series and was published in February 2005.

Excerpt:

BRIEF HISTORY OF A CITY

First, the clattering down of birches, like staves.
Then the layout, like ice cubes seen under water.
By a sutured railroad track, a smattering of graves.
Dresses--by train from Paris--made to order.

Wars in which stairwells rage and buildings crumble.
Flocks of speckled birds caught in the trees,
rising up like dust as artillery rumbles.
Rain rivering the window after disease.

Placid days of nursery school and parks.
From a rusting balcony where no one declaims,
a page of homework swirling down, its mark
a deliberately penciled “Good!” near a child’s name.

Along the prospect, enormous billboards sport
a giant chicken or bottle. The future survives:
cars pull away from squealing stops with a snort,
past traffic signs where stick figures flee for their lives.

(“Brief History of a City” originally appeared in Defined Providence.)