Michael J. Galko

Dusk on the Osaka-Kobe Shinkansen,

Imagining Myself Still at Nara

My back is to the emperor’s eye.

I am facing the chimes

hung from the temple’s eave.

In the light breeze

they touch below sound,

then darken suddenly.

If I stay facing east

and night falls before the shadow passes

I will never know

whether it was cloud

or beast.

Michael J. Galko is a scientist and poet who lives and works in Houston, TX. He was a finalist in the 2020 Naugatuck River Review and the 2022 Bellevue Literary Review poetry contests. Recent poems will appear in Stillwater Review, New Plains Review, Spillway Magazine, Rappahannock Review, Atlanta Review, and Rockvale Review, among other journals.