A promise of gold holds them.
Lured by insidious snake tongues,
they’ve discovered a bottomless share
of days into nights. Drop your shifting
from the river’s edge to your token
burlap sack of dust.
Locomotives hissing in the heat
steal your bread and water.
Chuck it in. Call it what it is:
illusions conjured around a campfire
of desperation, feeding off desire.
Lynn Fanok’s new collection of poems, Bread and Fumes, explores the cultural influences of her father’s Ukrainian heritage, and the complexities of being the daughter of a WWII labor camp survivor. Lynn lives with her husband near dairy farms and her backyard is a forest. She leads a poetry series at an independent bookstore.