W. Luther Jett
Unetaneh Tokef
Forsythia sun-yellow and blue
afternoon beyond
my window—A chill day,
early April. Those
who will live and those who will
not live still walk
the same path between maples
tinted scarlet, faded
cherries. Sparrows nestle, streets
empty, distant wail
of sirens—Ram’s horn calls each
to station, we are
caught in this thicket and who
will stay the knife
in its glint, its downward arc?
—Submitted on 04/10/2020
W. Luther Jett is the author of Not Quite: Poems Written in Search of My Father (Finishing Line Press, 2015) and Our Situation (Prolific Press, 2018).
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