Nate Maxson’s most recent poem to appear here was “The Flat Earth Has An Accident” (June 2016)

Corona/Fugue 
By Nate Maxson

Corona: the vibration between the breath and the note, but not in our language
Not our simple instrument,
Ours is a bleary haloed renaissance at best
An insomniac shadow around the sun, solve the puzzle and win the prize: a one way, all-expenses-paid vacation to the afterlife!
Let’s be serious for a moment (my hands are shaking, so you know I really mean it)
I don’t know what you win, and we lack enough belief in sphinxes necessary to create one (only
an abject lesson in Pavlovian engineering, not a living animal, so don’t worry)
A white bird when there is none
A song when there is no song
What am I?

Some people claim to see auras before a migraine sets in or smell oranges
I always smell honeysuckle before a thunderstorm, even in the desert,
And sometimes I sleep so deeply
That I don’t remember
Waking up
At all