from Sent Forth to Die in a Happy City 
Partial artifacts laid out across the desk,
canary seed watered in the dark.

Moving in and out of the background.

A scene staged for further examination.

Drawn back before the trail is lost,
they are caught listening in
or being heard.

The spell is broken.

At the mass of the hull,
they stray from their course.

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Keith Newton’s poems have appeared in Harvard Review, Konundrum Engine, and Typo, among other journals, and his chapbook Sent Forth to Die in a Happy City was published this year by Cannibal Books. He lives in Brooklyn, where he edits the online magazine Harp & Altar.