The ballerina is careful of her feet
around bullets sparkling in the snow.
She pauses at each pine tree,
listening for the sound of dance,
hearing nothing but the night
yawning and unhinging his jaw.
She ties a scarf around a soldier’s missing jaw,
avoiding a severed foot
wrapped like a present in the night.
But all I've got's this car-exhaust-blue
whiff of naphtha, click whirr scrape of flint
and knurled steel, tongue flick of orange and soot
in an oblong of dull metal, corners rounded
and nicked. Hard as brass, bold as brass –
But wounded, still. Feel it.
The snaking abrasions, hair-trap tangle
Poetry from Kirby Wright
Download To a Friend at the Ben Hur Apartments, San Francisco by Kirby Wright
Poetry from Sam Cha
Download “For Light, For Fire” by Sam Cha
You can also listen to a recording of Sam reading the peom
Poetry from Deborah Schwartz
Download “Pearl Bird” by Deborah Schwartz
Deborah Schwartz is a poet and fiction writer living and writing in Boston. Her poetry has been published in various journals including The GW Review, modern words,The Comstock Review, Aeirings (UK), eclectica, and Contemporary American Voices (forthcoming).
Poetry from Cassandra de Alba
Download Tchaikovsky, 1944 by Cassandra de Alba
You can also listen to a recording of Cassandra reading the poem.
Poetry by F. Daniel Rzicznek
Read poems from Leafmold by F. Daniel Rzicznek.
