MARCH 2026: William Derge (micro feature)

Artists from Maryland's second digital microchapbook run is underway! Read William Derge's From the Edge here (it's free to download!): https://artists-from-maryland.itch.io/from-the-edge-by-william-derge

William Derge’s poems have appeared in Negative Capability, The Bridge, Artful Dodge, Bellingham Review, and many other publications. He is the winner of the $1000 2010 Knightsbridge Prize judged by Donald Hall and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He is a winner of the Rainmaker Award judged by Marge Piercy.

"Barnyard Melodrama" by William Derge, from From the Edge

You’d gone out to feed the horses
when
I heard you screaming from the barn.
Snake or rat?
How fast did I want to run
to rescue you?
But I was your man,
and
A man’s got to do
what a man’s got to do.
says Coop in High Noon
with his eye on the clock.

From the shadows came a cluck,
and then another.
You emerged with a rake.
I was attacked!
a scratch on your arm,
some blood.
I opened the coop, you confessed.
They seemed so confined.
You were warned,
I made haste to remind you.

Just then,
The rooster appeared,
and I made
a greater haste to back away
Not you.
You raised the rake to strike.

The rooster checked his stride.
Son of a bitch! you cried.
The rake came down
but far off the mark.
And all I could say to you
was
Well, cock-a-doodle-doo.

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