Poems by Terry Harpold

Six stories of the world to come in twenty-four words or fewer

by Terry Harpold

From Canary Winter 2017-18

Terry lives on the border of the Santa Fe and Ocklawaha watersheds and teaches at the University of Florida. He is the founder of UF’s “Imagining Climate Change” initiative

All night the fever gave her uneasy, misshapen dreams. Or maybe she had been awake. It was hard to tell now.

You pull and push on the handle, like this. Just keep the bucket in the center so you don’t lose any.

Dipu steered the canoe slowly toward the floating clumps of rice stems. Retreating to the silt, prawns churned panicked ripples as he got closer.

The coral bed was gray and white and still, as far as the sunlight reached. It was beautiful, in a way.

There’s room for another, but she’ll have to share. And there’re no more blankets.

Mirana knew that it was time to leave when the dark water began to spill under the doorsill.