25 May Excerpts from Stock Pond by Justin Cox
dirt helmet a
historical helmet an
artifact metal met with
smooth dirt
i mean
ritual knowing
a tone from
tumbleweeds
stacked up over
the helmets of cars
*
hornets comb the lane comb
the cow in its lake of flies
hornets in the eye zoidinal
hornets paper the car paper
seats and springs each hornet a
last summer sunset drive
hornet here I am
wading grasses, ticks
for a good pan, for kicks
*
roiled
in a thick
side of
green
filigreed
heat the
horse’s heart
its big fast capacity
sweet meat of
the seed pod
jawed after grasses a
snow of ticks
drifts ankles in bleach
*
under skies
tenderized
trail and dent
summer slick
wood tick
blankets
the hillside
butterflies
lily white
pale yellow
flower types
lift and drift a
horn of rent through
jawed commons
gum tree seeds a
spiked ball its
unlock
into place its
rotating hillside of hounds
*
polished horns of
the bull
bleached skull
on the wall
above a pool
table light
stained glass, calcium
heat, beast wades
the algae
drinks
About the Poet
Justin Cox is a poet and writer whose work often explores rural poetics. His writing has appeared in Annulet: A Journal of Poetics, The Canary, Chicago Review, Denver Quarterly, Fence, The Iowa Review, jubilat, Mercury Firs, and Tagvverk. He teaches at the University of Iowa and has been a fellow at the International Institute of Modern Letters in Wellington, New Zealand.
Cox is the author of the book length poem Stock Pond (Bench Editions, June 2025). Stock Pond catalogs ecological and social impacts of industrial agriculture in the rural and the remote. Riffing on necropastoral and visionary poetics, Stock Pond proposes a cottage corrosive portrait of country life.
These excerpted poems originally appeared in Mercury Firs.
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Related Event
- Justin Cox will join poets Zach Savich, Alyssa Perry, and Hilary Plum in LIMITED PALETTE 04: The I-90 Connection, another Night of Performancy sponsored by Blue Bag Press and hosted by Thom Eichelberger-Young with a DJ set by Chango at 6:30 p.m. on Monday, May 26th (Memorial Day) at Fitz Books and Waffles, 1462 Main St. in Buffalo. Suggested donation is $5.
The Poem of the Week feature is curated by literary legacy awardee R.D. Pohl.