Martin Willitts Jr’s poem Van Gogh’s Ear appeared here in January 2013 and was nominated for a Best of the Net award for 2013.

Opossum
By Martin Willitts Jr

The neighbors behind have encouraged an opossum to stay.
They built a dog house for it, like it could be tamed,
answer to its name, stay put. But it would wander,
an escaped secret, tunneling, making darkness.

It is lumbering around there somewhere. I feel it.
Its presence and absence is everywhere and nowhere.

When my dying sunflower was bitten off at the stem,
it was a natural suspect, undetectable as a rumor.
A whisper. A sniff of air.