Model of a City in Civil War

Men carry a mattress retrieved from a dumpster past the flooded foundations of an unfinished high-rise, an old woman catches a pigeon in the folds of her dress the dead smile and rise from swimming pools or stand at attention on stamps. The landscape can't believe it's real—there is no ground beneath it, like what mirrors do.

Adam Day is the recipient of fellowships from the Poetry Society of America and Kentucky Arts Council, and a PEN Emerging Writers Award. His work has appeared in Boston Review , the Kenyon Review , American Poetry Review , AGNI , the Iowa Review , and others.