When We're Tired

A Poem by Michael Stone

When We’re Tired

When I hang up my coat I don’t want to die.

Flowers shed rain, even halos of petals.

The van groans through the dark west,

red rocks through glass.

My brother laughs taking us home,

ash of our faces bleached in sunlight

blank on hills,

my brother an eagle tumbling blonde-blue

feathers wrinkling,

our bones rattling down to the edge of the sky

into the lips of humans born to be us

after a long flight.

A tent unfolded passes over the mountains.

When I hang up my coat I don’t want to be reborn.

Michael Stone is a poet from Kalamazoo, MI but the only way to read his work is to make him food. He works in youth development in Grand Rapids and makes music under the name Desert Golfer.