THERE IS A CITY OUT THERE
by Jonny Pérez
Tag, you’re it.
There is a city out there, little one, with thousands of blackbirds,
And they swoop and gather evidence. Of another shadow city.
There are cities on the islands in the bays across the whole word. The waves
Get bigger if you swim that far out. There is a channel called the buttermilk channel.
It tastes good when you say it, on the tongue, where rivers, flee, and carry
Fate on their shoulders. Never run before you can walk. I don’t want you to skin your knee, sweetie.
Somewhere a wave bigger than the rest, rests its head against the vast century.
There are bigger sized foxes that eat smaller foxes, and in the forest,
There are old graves of Indigenous people’s, and remnants of festivals and birthings.
That crag is an anticipation of dusk. The thing about running is it will never catch you.
.
About the Author
Jonny Pérez, has published poetry in the following journals:
Prelude, POETRY Magazine, Yemassee, The River Heron Review, Blood Tree Literature, Allegory Ridge, Into The Void, Guesthouse, Hayden's Ferry Review, Blood Tree Literature, Dovecote, Coffin Bell Journal, Rumble Fish Quarterly, Rise Up Review, The Banyan Review, The Connecticut River Review, The Chicago Quarterly, Cathexis Northwest Press, The Tulane Review, The Florida Review, Cold Mountain Review, The Westchester Review, Yes, Mud Season, Frontier Magazine, Muse/ A Journal, The Bookends Review, Crack the Spine, Alternating Current, K'in, Split Lip Magazine, and Ovenbird Poetry, Pangyrus, and Cosmonauts Ave.
Jonathan's manuscripts, The Cartographer of Crumpled Maps: The Justice Elegies (2020) his second, The Diving: Dark was The Night of Justice, won the Burnside Review Chapbook Prize. His first full-length manuscript will be published in 2022 by Urban Farmhouse Press.
During the day time he has extensively worked on high profile organized crime cases as a prosecutor attorney in court. He is also in recovery and sending this from rehab.