wildscape. literary journal

Tracing Glass
by Jackson D. Moorman

These are turbulent times, faith 
a minute shell we put our ears up to.
Find it’s empty of even sound. Yellowing 
eyes, last gasp of empire, this country cirrhotic
and stumbling. Shelling schools, hospitals, 
grave sites. Shatter the illusion that we’re 
ever on the edge of greatness, we’re never 
even something acceptable. Horses running 
scared from the stable, the five alarm fire 
muted by the cheering crowd. Fists plumb 
with betting cash. Bread and circus Super 
Bowl, bread and circus social media, bread 
and circus all the way through. And night games 
under the shorn crest of moon, if we’d look close 
enough, everything illuminated again on 
history’s tracing glass. We’ll put out our tongues 
to taste the snow, only to realize it’s ash.

Grief House
by Jackson D. Moorman

Genocide from the blue glow. 
Journalist as witness / journalist as 

testament / journalist as target. 
I turn off the news and clock in 

at work, try and help children not die. 
I clock out. On break, a dead baby 

in my phone. A chorus of children praying 
to our country full of indifferent 

gods. Doctors and nurses at a press 
conference in coats of blood, podium draped 

with everyone they couldn’t save. 
I clock in to the hospital fluorescence, 

the supply carts overflowing, the floors 
bleach clean. I clock out for the numb

drive home. And later, in bed, imagining 
bombs. Imagining healthy children then not.

What to say from such safety? I write 
so I won’t forget. How else will we explain it — 

this house of grief for which everyone has a key?

about the author // Jackson D. Moorman