The Whole Thing
Each day now when you check the sunrise,
your Muse is ambling in the distant trees
and your breath no longer catches
and you no longer wave
and you wonder if the ground between you
is fallow,
or dormant,
or barren at long last
As if you are not allowed
the turns in life that need from you
more focus and more blood
than that apparition seen through the branches,
whom you think you have the right to chain
We all sleep, we all die,
we all must wander now and then,
all become the leaves we touch, the stars
we breathe
You are both here and there,
looking at yourself.
Portent
The ferment of a dying star
And I outside this house tonight
immersed in solar wind,
a jester’s breath, the vernal warning
of nights to come, of noiseless tumult
and voiceless moans
and the lingering death of white dwarf suns
In the rustling of summer trees at night
will be Sirens, in the blue milk wash
of moon on sheets and pillow,
in the sigh of misplaced worlds
I sense tonight a whispered chant,
a pulse along the breeze
Upon my lids the presage of a flaring star,
exploding suns and suns that flicker feebly, flicker slowly, flicker cold—
I smell them both.
Carrie Vaccaro Nelkin writes speculative fiction and poetry. Her short stories have appeared in Crow & Cross Keys, Supernatural Tales, Luna Station Quarterly, Bards and Sages Quarterly, and elsewhere. Her poetry has been published in Ephemeral Elegies, Honeyguide Literary Magazine, The Poet, Third Wednesday, Writing In A Woman’ Voice, and other places. A member of the Horror Writers Association, Carrie is author of the horror novel Snare. You can find her at cvnelkin.com, on X at @cvnelkin, and on Facebook (Carrie Vaccaro Nelkin, Author).
photo by Aldebaran S and Nathan Anderson (via unsplash)
Crow & Cross Keys 