Overgrown Road

by Andrew Dufresne
Wild Poetry Forum
Third Place, September 2015
Judged by C. Wade Bentley


It is summer in a hazy past,
insects drunk on animal blood
land lazily on bare arms, take
more than they need, breed, die.

Heat makes crazy, looks for
shade, knits a sweat sheen
out of pure air, pond glare throws
a knife into an unprotected eye.

Children kill each other, mock
war, mimic, enemies easy enough
to hate, strong enough to surrender,
sigh and say, where’s the lemonade?

Somewhere down an overgrown
road, where we leave our young
senses, spent shell casings shine,
shots fired in panic, self defenses


Lovely internal rhymes, palpable nostalgia, and a spot-on, fresh metaphor: “knits a sweat sheen.” --C. Wade Bentley