Michael T. Young

UNSOLVED MYSTERIES

Why do I obsess over a plane that goes missing, 
a ship drifting into the bay without a crew? Maybe, 
like the chest in the attic that no one in the house owns, 
it’s personal. The puzzle of keys that unlock nothing 
gather a mystical dust. There’s that door with a broken latch
hanging open. Through it is everything without an answer, 
and I can’t stop wondering why the bank account 
was closed, or the bells of hyacinth shed their scent 
like husks of blue beetles. Stored in a jar, they rattle 
with the hardness of a riddle. Another day arrives 
like a stranger who can’t remember his name. 
I call it a gull’s cry, a salting of maples with an armor 
of mussel shells, their unbreakable, nacreous code. 
Inked with murky clues, a notebook washes up on a beach. 
The barn floor is knuckled through with thick roots, 
and my relief that no one knows. A man parachutes 
from a plane into the night. He leaves only a trail 
of questions. How reassuring. Traces of anonymity 
perforate this world that knows too much about us. 
The cicada digs deep, and lives, concealing his name 
under a carapace. I walk a street littered with leads, 
currents of evidence wheeling under a flock of pigeons
that rise and scatter like a disintegrating fingerprint. 

Michael T. Young’s third full-length collection, The Infinite Doctrine of Water, was longlisted for the Julie Suk Award. His previous collections are The Beautiful Moment of Being Lost and Transcriptions of Daylight. He received a Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. His chapbook, Living in the Counterpoint, received the Jean Pedrick Chapbook Award. His poetry has been featured on Verse Daily and The Writer’s Almanac. It has also appeared or is forthcoming in numerous journals including Cimarron Review, Gargoyle Magazine, One, Rattle, and Valparaiso Poetry Review. Website: http://www.michaeltyoung.com/. Twitter: https://twitter.com/miketoddyoung.