Moth
While I was out
it hatched
split and quit
its
chrysalis
on a first leaf
dull wet wings
folded to a
thorax
boxy and squat.
lumpen stubby
moveless till
moonlight
wrote silver
on russet
limned antennae
fanned and
feathery
moth launched
an unsure orbit
around porch
lamp
a bright shadow
brushing
the cusp of dusk.
Patchwork
Prayers
Listen to the silence as the world wakes —
factory stacks stand cold and unsmoking.
Our patchwork prayers are almost answered.
Watch all the shapes that turning birds
make
our joy ballooning with every motion,
listen to the silence as the world wakes.
Smile at ashen skies so slowly blueing
while great whales sing in shipless oceans.
Our patchwork prayers so nearly answered.
Polar cubs play on glaciers cooling,
frog spawn froths, growing into commotion.
Listen to the silence as the world wakes.
In weedy streets teddy bears are blooming
with these painted rainbows, such loving
notions:
our patchwork prayers may soon be answered.
In backyards families are moon viewing,
clean air they’re sharing a healing potion.
Listen to the silence as the world wakes.
Our patchwork prayers are almost answered.
Squamous
Youth a burn of merry go rounds and
laughing clowns,
zinc swiped
on by mum mopped off after goodbye,
Ambre Solaire, flirty skirts, hat’s a dirty
word, sleeves a modesty affected by the
old.
Skin seared and salty peels, small storm of
foreboding
ignored. Red spots erupt, in years less volatile,
less radiant. Gods in white (no haloes),
evict wilding nuclei, emergent purple nudging
from under dressings. Dermis distends, encircles
brow and socket tight and shiny as a
child’s balloon.
Eye squinched. Lid gibbous. The world unreadable.
Darkness passes. Stitches inflicted by
fingers intent
on excision of sins held by cells, unpicked.
Lessened yet again, I adjust akubra, squint
sunwards, sky a pethidine that doesn’t numb.
Jan Napier is a Western Australian poet. Her work has been showcased in journals and anthologies both within Australia and overseas.
Jan’s first poetry collection Thylacine was launched in 2015. Her haiku collection Day Moon was published in 2020, as was her third poetry collection Listening to Frost. Jan is on the committee of the Out of the Asylum Writer’s Group, (OOTA), which is based in Fremantle Western Australia.
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