lost in translation

Stephen Jackson

— for Tim Gouran 

The image in my head trips nightmares — 
wild colts bolt down the highway in pairs, 
tearing free of tethers, electric lights and carousels  

the alarming scrape, the high-pitched screech 
of metal against concrete, turns to  
a singular scream, as streams of beautiful women  

in splayed September light, come running 
out of tunnels, charging down the street 
to lay their anguish bare, in a language neither you  

nor I, can speak. 

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Stephen Jackson lives and writes in the mystical Pacific Northwest. Other work appears in The American Journal of Poetry, FERAL: A Journal of Poetry and Art, Impossible Archetype, Stone of Madness Press, and Wine Cellar Press, as well as on the 2019 International Human Rights Art Festival Publishes platform. @fortyoddcrows

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