and death is the same
everywhere
so in the painting Mucha
shows us his hometown Ivančice

and one night I walked the entire width of St. Louis
from my neighborhood called the Loop
to the Arch and back
I passed through streets like the opened moon

I saw almost no one
and God gave us a gift of language, waiting
under the Blaník mountain
and it will emerge at our darkest hour

but a day inside the work is like a year
on the surface

/

Joe Lennon lives in Colorado, where he has just finished a PhD at the University of Denver. He has previously lived in China, the Czech Republic, Missouri, Texas, and Georgia.