Stephen Kampa

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Expanding Gases Fill the Available Space

Why does steam rising from morning coffee
remind me of a ghost opening its hand?
Outside, birdsong challenges the early-bird
neighbor’s infernal mower. Without looking,
I know all the grass is still wet with dew,
and I wish I could say something profound
about all the grass still wet with dew.
Plastic wheels chatter over pitted asphalt
as someone curbs the bin across the street
to make it easier for the trash collectors.
I watch through living room windows
as fog lifts like a dirigible into a future
of aerial cocktails and airable grievances.
Elsewhere, a child soldier stumbles out
of a forest, clutching a rifle by the butt,
dragging the barrel behind him as though,
like a child, he were drawing in the dirt.

Stephen Kampa is the author of four collections of poetry: Cracks in the Invisible (2011), Bachelor Pad (2014), Articulate as Rain (2018), and World Too Loud to Hear (2023). His work has appeared in the Yale Review, Cincinnati Review, Southwest Review, Hopkins Review, Poetry Northwest, Subtropics, and Smartish Pace. He was also included in Best American Poetry 2018 and Best American Poetry 2024. During the spring of 2021, he was the writer in residence at the Amy Clampitt House. He teaches at Flagler College.