Kirby Estes

	BEFORE STRIKING THE SET

	Cinematic sunrise

	many actors in bed

	day starting anyway

	Sun never sleeps

	seen as vacationing

	every night

	leaving the watch to the moon

	Dreams have chased devils

	washed them out

	as rains on brain

	silent as evolution

	humming as dawn

	when sun returns

	carrying song

	painting familiarity anew

	Engines as clockwork

	bumper to bumper

	earbuds with tunes

	rounding off coffee

	Insulation of womb

	defined by closed windows

	climate-conditioned

	amnion in traffic's stream

	To whom is grass waving

	breeze slipping through fingers

	stroking their own short sky?

	Birds holding pattern on wire

	digesting a breakfast

	waiting for noon

	watching metallic bugs dance?

	For whom will the weary sun smile?

	Props set by actors

	assume leading roles

	disenfranchisement

	steals the curtain

	puppets nodding together

	while turtles blink

	under generous sun

	waiting for the collapse.

	COOL GOLD

	It may be a discomfort

	if it is to be about this one

	you are on the other side

	constant in your station

	familiar with your own attire

	Clouds without sky

	storms silent as death

	clip wings of discourse

	This one is intransitive

	before your activeness

	a second-person ear

	to your most important lips

	Queen of Sheba

	King of Siam

	This one is a speck on the wall

	waiting to fall

	into the right circumstance

	where clouds lift

	like left-over angels

	Candles have yielded

	to incandescent bulbs

	and those to fluorescence

	the flame's the same

	more equally divided

	spread as a bas-relief

	on dwindling stone

	Here

	an objective stare

	at the cool gold of subjectivity

	in its purest moment

	Kirby Estes, a retired architect, lives with his wife, Martha, in Fayetteville, Arkansas.  

	His chapbook of poetry, Backroad, was released in April  2007.  

	His poems have appeared in several journals including Arkansas Literary  Forum, Istanbul Literature Review, 

	Poesia, Slant and Zafusy.