Over a clear horizon there appeared a column of smoke,
strange and violent. The landscape aflame with flowers
 
and breathing like a giant. Ghostly plume filling the sky
above the plains, its soot rising from a crater
 
several yards across. Grasses leaned toward the hole
and what lay at its center: a nest woven of twigs
 
and eiderdown, compressed into stone. Curled in its heart,
a bird and a mouse, scorched into a labyrinth of bone.
 
 
 

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Timothy Otte’s work has appeared in or is forthcoming from SAND Journal, the minnesota review, Paper Darts, and elsewhere. He is a 2014-15 Loft Mentor Series winner and is currently at work on his first book. He is from and lives in the Twin Cities, Minnesota, but he keeps a home on the internet: www.timothyotte.com