Nocturne
Christian J. Collier
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![I learned to fly in a crimson field of dirt behind Greenway Farms
the August [ ] took his life & the rest of summer with him.
In eighth grade, he believed he could survive
anything, even himself & lived long enough to learn he was wrong.
I believed I could be more than man &, for two hours, became
the darkest bird in Hamilton County—barely eighteen,
midnight blue, resting my warm, bare feet on sheets of gale
as fog-sopped night made kindred of me.
The South’s always been, at least, half magic.
None of Her children are ever too old to be held or hoisted up.
There’s an unwritten rule that hugs the sandy shoulders of Her dust:
what lasts here can own any name it yens for. I called myself lucky
Her piny air gave refuge—
a spectered hand to catch my tears, a hidden ear to heed me confess
mine was & would forever be a mulish, lesioned heart
unable to forgive in full any beloved’s being & keeping dead.](https://shopoetryjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/196/2025/06/christian-j-collier-nocturne-sho-poetry-prize.png)
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This poem was selected as the winner of the Shō Poetry Prize for Shō No. 7.
Read about the Shō Poetry Prize here, or view past recipients and honorees.
Christian J. Collier is a Black, Southern writer, arts organizer, and teaching artist who resides in Chattanooga, TN. He is the author of Greater Ghost (Four Way Books, 2024), and the chapbook The Gleaming of the Blade, the 2021 Editors’ Selection from Bull City Press. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, POETRY, December, and elsewhere.
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