Bio
Michael Mintrom lives in Melbourne, Australia. His poetry has recently appeared in Amsterdam Quarterly, Blue Mountain Review, Cordite Poetry Review, and Stone Poetry Quarterly.
Michael Mintrom
Return of the Middle Ages
We bought peonies from a farmer
who held a coin bag and a tattered map.
Wind whistled in trees. That's when it started.
Three troubadours crossed the verge —
mandolin, guitar, violin. I remember
crows circling under stormy skies.
In the city, the town hall was chained shut.
Now schools and clinics
have been swept and shuttered.
Outside the mall, unmarked buses idle,
waiting for the living and the dead.
My brother said his wife's
missing. Clergy keep a list of traitors.
Biking to the chicken farm, I saw
a row of graves beside the rusted carousel.