In a Thicket Outside Dallas, Texas

by Nathaniel Hunt

Tonight I am suffocating
while the stars melt above me

and the clouds catch
the molten blood of light-years.

The hot night, and the lightning
in the heat, and the silence
where there is no thunder.

From the road comes
a scratchy voice and biblical
language. The sound of rain.

The neon signs
are on in the empty
Mexican restaurants.

I hear the wail
of the night train.

About the Author

Nathaniel Hunt grew up on a small farm near Eugene, Oregon. He received a Bachelor’s Degree in Writing and Literature (with a minor in Spanish language) from George Fox University. In the summer of 2011 he moved to Philadelphia to pursue a career in writing, editing, and publishing. His poems have been featured in Iconoclast, The Houston Literary Review, The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, and Pennsylvania Literary Journal, among others. He is the co-founder and co-editor of the upstart literary journal Cartographer. A mini-chapbook of his, Runaways, is forthcoming from Red Ochre Press.

Maintained or neglected, familiar or foreign, well-worn or wild, roadways inform our decisions and identities. Their geographies direct the movement
of our lives and sketch the cartography of our stories. In this spirit, 322 Review publishes provocative emerging and established artists whose fiction,
creative nonfiction, poetry, and mixed media artwork wander the paths of human experience. A nonprofit literary journal conceived
and operated by former Rowan University graduate students, 322 Review is based in Southern New Jersey.