Tadpole Press

I wrote "icicle at sunset" from a prompt at our Community Write-In on the Snow Moon. Upon listening to all the creations, I was struck by the inherent impermanence of an icicle.

I don't like to tell you this but when I cross the line I see you there too waiting, daring me with your bedazzled eyes of sapphire           to take the final step until I am wholly submerged

they asked me what I'll write as if I could define such a thing as if the halls weren't covered in moss and brimstone the mountains weren't faded with fog and mirrors

some things, I've decided, are better left as fossils crumpled, shaken things you never would have said

the heat that came in waves throughout our homes, our feet, our minds sizzled like slugs caught on the drying, moth-eaten rind

it's the place where lost memories go to die to be reborn and maybe circle back around and around twice or thrice until we forget which side was up where fact left off and fiction gained and truth became the thorn

he told me once      that watching me write          was like witnessing a professional athlete stretching primed before a big race I like to imagine my words like that       all sinew and muscle            stretched taut across the page       with the force of a jaguar ready to run