These three poems by Michael T. Young range from political satire to exploration of the self’s transcendent mutability, finding the miraculous in the everyday…
by Michael T. Young
Takeover
Bushes have camouflaged themselves
as the parked cars of key government
officials. Octopuses have come out
of the ocean and chameleons out of their
trees, and disguised themselves as senators.
Even the president and supreme court justices
are concealed leopards and zebras. It took
some time for them to come to a truce
and reshape their spots and stripes to blend in,
to make their way from the forests and savannas—
years, actually. But there they are, pulling
the strings of government. Although no one
can tell that animals have taken over
because of the camouflage, and no one knows
their plans, everyone agrees, things just don’t
seem right. Why do they not understand
how things work? Why do they keep breaking
things and making excuses? The president
endlessly gnaws his sharpie like a bone.
Congressmen gather in herds on the senate floor.
News reports the potential for a stampede
and people wonder where it’s safest to stand.
Glancing Off Water, Off Stone
Water gives way for stone to pass,
but, at the right angle, will stride the wave.
My son, coming from the lake, tells me how
he managed five skips, more than he’s ever
done before. I tell him that’s the kind of miracle
people need, to believe that light will cradle them
even when they don’t deserve it. He’s puzzled.
Watch, I say, as the sun sets, how light, even
at this golden time, splinters across the surfaces,
splashes the underside of overhanging willows,
leaving the depths in the dark. It’s there we wait,
praying for a drench of radiance. Poor swimmers
that we are, like stones, we trail ripples of light
only as we dance across the surface of things.
Wing-Shadow of a Finch
There’s a name for this mistake
of describing the morning
only in terms of our waking.
It’s hinted at somewhere other
than the beds we rise from,
near a finch pecking a fleck
of frost formed on a windowpane,
and who finds the pitch of his song
tilts slightly towards blue.
He flies off, passing a river
whose waters slow,
spooling an aqueous nest
on a rock’s downstream side.
Its walls appear threaded
by the day’s radiance.
And although the finch
is gone, his shadow
comes to rest there,
spreading its wings between
the two worlds reflected
on either side of who we are.
Michael T. Young’s fourth collection, Mountain Climbing a River, will be published by Broadstone Media in late 2025. His third full-length collection, The Infinite Doctrine of Water, was longlisted for the Julie Suk Award. He received a Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and the Jean Pedrick Chapbook Award. He also received honorable mention for the 2022 New Jersey Poets Prize. His poetry has been featured on Verse Daily and The Writer’s Almanac. It has also appeared in numerous journals including I-70, The Journal of New Jersey Poets, One Art, and Vox Populi.
