Jake Adam York

Colorado poet, writer, and editor Jake Adam York (1972-2012) was represented on this site and his information has been left up as testimonial to his life and work.

Jake Adam York

Hush

It’s just the wind, she says,

and not the cigarette pull

of a stranger in the roadside weeds,

the wind, and not the ember burrowing

like a mite in a dead bird’s wing

or your fear that the weeds will catch

and it won’t be wind any more,

the wind, and not the shadow

blazing brush toward the few

still-lit windows that glow

like cigarette tips through the leaves,

but the wind, the wind

through his hair, his lungs,

his easeful steps, quiet

as the wind or the wisteria

gripping the screen or the small boy

running through the moonlit woods

from the man who entered

like the wind in his ears

as the trellis bends

to those open, hungry hands,

or the maple shuddering at the screen

where no one’s home

but the wind

that watches itself fall

to the man whose suit of flame

crackles like the wind

that comes through the screen

like a mother saying

hush it’s only the wind,

or a mother saying hush

it’s only the wind.

 

from New Orleans Review, 28/2 (2002)