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Justin Runge

Your jacket snags a branch / and its sleeve makes a flag


Witness

You can panic real well,
reach for water and drink.

You are a turntable skipping
on half a funk horn stab,

a light-fixtureful of flies
chiming. You want a sandwich,

a chance to catch your breath.
Your jacket snags a branch

and its sleeve makes a flag
like the fairy tale cape shred

in that dream you had again.
If witness is just open eyes,

just regurgitation, then here:
walk to the cul-de-sac

where strays clamber out
of trash cans and trash men,

grimy, right them. Find a box
well-taped, a cat yawning,

strangers introducing them-
selves to you as confidants.


Justin Runge lives in Lawrence, Kansas, where he serves as poetry editor of Parcel. He is the author of two chapbooks, Plainsight (New Michigan Press, 2012) and Hum Decode (Greying Ghost, 2014). Recipient of a 2014 Langston Hughes Award, Runge has published in Linebreak, DIAGRAM, Harpur Palate, Best New Poets 2013, and elsewhere. He can be found at www.justinrunge.me.