Gwen Monohan’s most recent poem to appear here was “Circuit Breakers” (March 2017)

Crimson Tide
By Gwen Monohan

Before the games of football reign
on wide-spread southern clay,
flattened by aging rivers curving,
overflowing their banks into oxbow lakes,
there ranges thick matted clover
deep as winter quilts, slathering
spring fields in southern Alabama.

Rolling crimson over meadows and medians,
covering opponent grassy weeds,
not unlike their football team’s victories.
Yet little is left after droughts but dried clover,
clinging to earth, red spattered as blood.
But now from horrific fires.