Stranger Things S1E4

You’re talking about grief.
           This is different,
how the sky lost
           a single stitch and paid
the earth a debt
           of silver, a fortune
in nickels bruising
           the summer fruit.
Today the trains
           collapsed into prayer,
the river spat up
           its mudbed
like a fevered child.
           Witness the shapeless
effigy. The stars
           knocked loose
from God’s mouth,
           cities drained
dead of color, all stop
           and go futile
monotone. I’m saying
           the dogwoods
cried themselves
           sterile and still
my friend is gone.

Eric Tran is a resident physician in Asheville, NC and holds an MFA from UNCW. He is the winner of the 2015 New Delta Review Matt Clark Prose Award and was a finalist in the 2015 Indiana Review 1/2K Prize and the Tinderbox Poetry Prize. His work appears in or is forthcoming in Diagram, Indiana Review, Black Warrior Review, and elsewhere.