Terrace Song

Published in Furrow Magazine (poetry)

𝄆 Squeak, click, crunch 𝄇

The distant mountains’ glow,

shingles & jutting molds pearled

like a poisonous whisper crystallizing

slowly into calling, dissolving.

Everything still, moves, & nothing

shows us everything, so we stand.

You pocket kisses

in the groove of my neck.

We hear stories in the news,

car accidents, bullets

carving through politics.

I lift my ear but still can’t tell

if the white neon hums

like my father’s heart monitor.

But do you hear the rhythmic dirge —

the executioner’s shoes marching

up the naked spine of night,

feet callous on the cold stone walkway?

I think we’ve made it too easy —

left a trail of seeds that soles peck at

like beaks & those were tangible,

unlike these swaths of light

threatening to shape-shift.

We could have folded ovals

into soil — crawled & leaped

between sunflower bulbs for lunar shade.

My darling, I know we fear dying,

but look falsely to the moon. 

𝄆 Squeak, click, crunch 𝄇

𝄆 Squeak, click, crunch 𝄇

Squeak, click, crunch.