NELLE 7 | 2024
I need to let go my ghost-flecked selves,
release this closed-mouth sadness, witness,
in the midst of a fly’s alien ugliness,
the iridescent exquisiteness of wings.
Stop this seesaw between autograph
and erasure, this constant drift from soar
to sink. I am sick of where I am and where
I am not, trapped in the gap between sunlight
and tar pit, spilling oil-slick and glint
like a joint invitation to danger, its call
for lickety-split. I need to hang my weight
slack as an empty hammock or pull myself
into a tautness that isn't clenched fist, crawl
from the flooding gully toward the sun’s scroll,
into the flames of all the red flowers.