mapping the nest
Photo by Annie Spratt via Unsplash : Midnight Jasmine : I blame myself. The years that keep going by, the countries between us, the many hands that have touched you since, the many lips. You, who were so new. They say you love what you’ve lost. My loss is a desert of books, furniture, people.... Continue Reading →
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez via Unsplash: Aftermath : . The storm hit the house—a car at 70 miles per hour. . I saw the tree in front rush toward the window . ... Continue Reading →
Photo by Federico Bottos via Unsplash : The Photograph : It doesn’t matter what we should have argued about. Talking was something we couldn’t or wouldn’t do. We walked through a meadow instead, you slightly ahead and I taking pictures of things I wanted to remember, including that bloody sunset. The flowers parted before... Continue Reading →
Photo by Denys Argyriou via Unsplash : This bruised shadow of a promise : This bruised shadow . of a promise. I made it. It was meant . ... Continue Reading →
Photo by v2osk via Unsplash : Falling Asleep with Carpenter Bees : The walls are thin, transparent. Angels stand at right angles. I close my eyes to see the bees breaking and entering. Honeycomb dipped in sorrow. Eyeballs rolling like grapes on my palm. I see a handful of pennies fallen through the grate. Shallow... Continue Reading →
Photo by Neslihan Gunaydin via Unsplash : The Rose : This hand that holds the trowel, a rubber glove to hide thick-knuckled, restless fingers— you know it’s yours. Yours, also, the knobby knees, the narrow feet in muddy crocs, the loosened skin holding it all together—who knows however long? You are a waterfall of flesh and... Continue Reading →
Photo by Hilthart Pedersen via Unsplash : Compromise : A flask empty of wine on the table. The table wanting for food in a house missing its people. Things are meant to be filled with other things. The sky, empty of birds, has clouds, at least. They carry no rain. Far below, the earth... Continue Reading →
Photo by Bruno Nascimento via Unsplash : Time Capsule We dug a hole at the back of grandma’s garden, where we had laid bodies to rest in matchstick boxes, each grave with its makeshift cross of twigs and brambles, as if beetles, too, had a god, or a church, or a soul. It was the pull of... Continue Reading →
Image courtesy of the historical archive AGERPRESS : Bread : My father stands with his back to the wall, clutching his fists. The boys are tall. They lower their shaved heads. Show us your hands, they say. If you're not hiding anything. My father knows he'll cry soon. He calls grandma, but she can't hear... Continue Reading →
Photo by Tom Barett via Unsplash : Room with a View : All I can see out the window is your absence trimming the landscape. : First published in One Sentence Poems, September 2018
Photo by Martino Pietropoli via Unsplash : The Guest : My house grows small waiting for her to leave. Today I opened the door to the cellar and it wasn’t there. I climbed the staircase to the attic— it ended in a dead wall. The bathroom I’ve been so proud of shrank to the size... Continue Reading →
Photo by Dan Rowden via Unsplash : Small Truths, You Said : We never have enough of them. Open your palm, hold this one. See how fragile it is? Even your breath could kill it. Don't breathe. The light on the water drew back, the tide came in. Your voice was a litany of shadows.... Continue Reading →
Greg Spalenka Divinus : Tentative Futures : You try to forgive words their push and pull. In the garden, the cherry tree has sprouted buds, each one enveloping a heartbeat. You lean against the trunk, listening to the hum under its bark, remembering what it was like to carry that same echo deep in the... Continue Reading →
Leonard Myburgh Airbrushed Lion Courtesy of lonehillart.com : The Lion : Every angel is terrifying. ~ Rilke He comes in the dark, breaks doors, muscles his way through windows. His wings wrap around my heart like sin. His words run through my blood... Continue Reading →
Image courtesy of Alan Harris via hiveminer.com : Murder in the Orchard : Nobody wants to handle the dead bird, its beak cracked as an omen. We read a tear, or is it only the implacable glass of the eye, watching? None of us comes even near the limp body in the dirt. We circle... Continue Reading →
