Dear Death
~ David Hernandez

Cool cloak. So goth. I dig how the pleats
ripple like pond water when you move,
and the hood shadows the absence of your face.
Sweet scythe, too. The craftsmanship
of the wooden handle, how smooth the slow
curve. I had to look it up—it’s called
the snath (rhymes with wrath), or snathe
(rhymes with bathe). I prefer the latter, the long
a. Snathe sounds like an infectious disease
I might’ve caught if my mother wasn’t there
to steer me from the gutter, from large
puddles marbled green, mosquitoes
scribbling above. How many times
do mosquitoes do your dirty work anyway?
Versus fleas? Versus gunpowder?
How bone-tired were you in Tōhoku?
The previous year in Haiti? Have you ever felt
the sepia wind of remorse? I have 77 more
questions for you, give or take, you’re often
in my thoughts. Yesterday, while grinding
coffee beans. While cleaning the lint trap.
Dicing cilantro. Buying ink cartridges.
Clipping my beard. I could go on and on,
you’re that legendary in my head.
It works this way: I’m running the knife
across the cutting board, the cilantro
breaks into confetti, I remember my mother
scattering the herb over a Chilean dish, then
her voice on Monday, “numbness in my leg,”
“congestive heart failure,” and it fails,
my mind fast-forwards to when it fails,
I can’t help it, you grip her IV’d hand, pull her
over, and it is done, her silence begins
blowing through in waves, icing the room—
the thought seized me so completely, the knife
hovered still above the wooden board.
Seriously though, cool cloak. Sick black
fabric. I heard if you turn it inside out,
the whole world’s embroidered on the lining.

Embroidered Silk

Three Mile Island at Night
~ Michelle Brooks
I have not been able to locate a website for the author. If you know of one, please share!

I am waiting for the disaster of my
life to reveal itself. All the elements
are present for an accident of serious
consequence. When it does, I will make
the oldest wish – for things to be as they once
were, the moment before the inevitable.
First pretend this isn’t happening. If you
don’t acknowledge it, it will go away. It’s
a bad dream. When you can no longer hide
it, shift blame. Wash your hands. Rinse,
lather, repeat. The poison has seeped into you.
You are Cassandra. You told everyone, and now
you and your crystal ball can’t be blamed.
You saw this happening. You knew. Or you
didn’t. You had no idea. You can’t be blamed.

At night there is no difference between you
made a mistake and you are a mistake. Make
no mistake now – you are here with no map.
Hell is a self-perpetuating circle. You aren’t
going anywhere. That was before, the moment
you can’t conjure. Make no mistake. You are home.

Tim Riggins Speaks of Waterfalls
~ Nico Alvarado

“You want to know what it was like?
It was like my whole life had a fever.
Whole acres of me were on fire.
The sun talked dirty in my ear all night.
I couldn’t drive past a wheatfield without doing it violence.
I couldn’t even look at a bridge.
I used to go out in the brush sometimes,
So far out there no one could hear me,
And just burn.
I felt all right then.
I couldn’t hurt anyone else.
I was just a pillar of fire.
It wasn’t the burning so much as the loneliness.
It wasn’t the loneliness so much as the fear of being alone.
Christ look at you pouring from the rocks.
You’re so cold you’re boiling over.
You’ve got stars in your hair.
I don’t want to be around you.
I don’t want to drink you in.
I want to walk into the heart of you
And never walk back out.”

Shaki Waterfall, Armenia; Image from Wikipedia

From “The Heavens”
~ Caterina Bon Brenzoni

[…] The heart has powerful wings;—take me by the hand:
Following the flight of high intelligence will come
This desire for knowledge that burns within me,
This love of truth that overpowers me so.
Speak to me your language! Oh, the raptures
Of a thought that turns towards the infinite,
Oh, the ecstasy of a heart immersed in it
Is a heavenly sight, and you shall witness it!
You shall witness my joyful soul reflect
That intimate delight that irradiates
The intellect at each new knowledge
And is but a small presage in this world of that
Which rains forever on the bosom of the Immortals
The brilliance of Uncreated Light.

Behold, to me you disclose the workings
Of immutable laws; behold, I comprehend
The harmony of portents where at other times
I urged my thought in vain. I see mysterious
Forces penetrate every atom and give life
To all existence. The same power
That draws to earth the drop of rain
Also draws Niagara’s flood; it raises
The sea’s spray to meet the lunar disc;
It binds the planets to the Sun, and to other Suns
Ours that shines on us; and a masterly skill
Admirable in quantity and scope
Regulates and holds in check all the
Gravitating masses worked on by that power.

There’s a kind of white moth, I don’t know
what kind, that glimmers
by mid-May
in the forest, just
as the pink mocassin flowers
are rising.

If you notice anything,
it leads you to notice
more
and more.

And anyway
I was so full of energy.
I was always running around, looking
at this and that.

If I stopped
the pain
was unbearable.

If I stopped and thought, maybe
the world
can’t be saved,
the pain
was unbearable.

Finally, I noticed enough.
All around me in the forest
the white moths floated.

How long do they live, fluttering
in and out of the shadows?

You aren’t much, I said
one day to my reflection
in a green pond,
and grinned.

The wings of the moths catch the sunlight
and burn
so brightly.

At night, sometimes,
they slip between the pink lobes
of the moccasin flowers and lie there until dawn,
motionless
in those dark halls of honey.

White Ermine Moths: Image from http://www.moorhen.me.uk/index.htm