Porch Swing, Matthew 24,

Poetry

Jan 16

I mistake chimney swifts for bats,
flitting in the gray dusk sky. I mistake
so many things for what they’re not,

like your love for desperation. Out past
the bog, Jack-in-the Pulpits babble

the word, its meaning easily mistaken.
So it goes, so slam the door of the kingdom
of heaven in my face. Fake prophets

and messiahs have emerged and fool even
the elect. Jesus warned us years ago.

Ancient Romans thought swallows
the souls of dead children; watching them
appear, fishermen knew home was near.

PoetryJohn Hoppenthaler

John Hoppenthaler

John Hoppenthaler’s books of poetry are Night Wing Over Metropolitan Area, Domestic Garden, Anticipate the Coming Reservoir, and Lives of Water, all with Carnegie Mellon UP. With Kazim, Ali, he has co-edited a volume of essays on the poetry of Jean Valentine, This-World Company (U of Michigan P). His poetry and essays appear in Ploughshares, Virginia Quarterly Review, New York Magazine, Southern Review, Poetry Northwest, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Southeast Review, Blackbird, Southern Humanities Review, and many other journals, anthologies, and textbooks. He is a Professor of Creative Writing and Literature at East Carolina University.

Instagram: hoppenthalerjohn

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BlueSky: johnhoppenthaler.bsky.social

Porch Swing, Matthew 24,

Upper Shoals, Glendale, SC

[water] acknowledgement