BY ADAM HUGHES
Where there are mountains, draw
teeth. Where there are rivers,
make fleets of jellyfish.
Where the land is flat
and the horizon meets the dome
of the sky, draw a watering
of the eyes and the urge
to give up. Depressions
should be scooped out
with entrenchment tools
and filled with charms
to ward off filling. Your pencil
will dull and refuse
to be sharpened. This is
to be expected, but not
celebrated. Always draw
with a prayer in your cheeks
and your eyes closed
and your fingers wrapped
around the windpipe of a shorebird.
Where there is certainty, smudge
the borders—where there are blank
spaces draw a bed of eels.
Write your dreams into
currents, watch
them drift from island to island
with all the confidence
of a sunset and the firm
steady hand of a navigator.
Adam Hughes is the author of four full-length poetry collections, most recently Allow the Stars to Catch Me When I Rise (Salmon Poetry, 2017) and Deep Cries Out to Deep (Aldrich Press, 2017). Born and raised in Central Ohio, he now resides in the foothills of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains where he is pursuing an MFA at Randolph College. He can be found on twitter @adamhughespoet1.