Shades of Shadow
Why such a fascination
with things that reach up
like trees and towers and dreams?
The sniggering answer would be
our obsession with mighty erections
monuments to a legacy
in granite or marble or earthier extensions
but me I have no truck with
stretching my vulnerable neck
like a Queen about to be beheaded
searching for the long dead stars
you see I can never forget
tall things throw the longest shadows
and somewhere in those ivy clad towers
or mixing with the murk of slated trees
a man with flints in his eyes is waiting
to offer me warmth
but really he only wants to set so many fires
I could never stamp them all out
Before the Rain Left
From the fictile sack of memory we unpack
Those glazed-donut days of summer
As we watched him shake sea drops to bedazzle blankets
We smiled as he glugged happy bubbles down his throat
Bright and delicate as an anemone
Later his yells burst haphazardly into the treacle air
Calling hickory lost sheep and hey-diddle spiders
Spinning his sun-starched body and barking at the rain to go away
We should have danced with him under that last purple sky
But how were we to know
Those last showers now eulogized in columns
Went unremarked by us as they were unremarkable
then—
Those Who Live in Glass Houses
I woke up last Tuesday / a week after you left / in a glass house / my world turned to crystal / like in a fairytale from long ago / when I still believed / and all our old mistakes / were tinted violet / illuminated / with truth and passion / and suffering / that felt as holy / as any stained glass
Under my pained bed / I could see dust bunnies / I’d been feeding them / misery / shredded as my skin / so they’ d grown fat / on my regrets / sweeping them up they frosted over / and my sadness seemed whimsical / like an ornament / taken out once a year / to remind us / there is still enchantment in the world
My sorrow hardened / until it was cool and clear and solid / something I could pick up and use / like a red wine glass / or a magic mirror that I looked into / hoping for a wish / to bring you back / in my reflection / I saw / I had changed too / but it was much too late / to stop myself from shattering
Adele Evershed is a Welsh writer who swapped the valleys for the American East Coast. You can find some of her poetry and prose in Grey Sparrow Journal, Anti Heroin Chic, Gyroscope, and Janus Lit, among others. Adele has two poetry collections, Turbulence in Small Spaces (Finishing Line Press) and The Brink of Silence (Bottlecap Press). She has published two novellas in flash, Wannabe and Schooled (Alien Buddha Press), and has a forthcoming novella, A History of Hand Thrown Walls, with Unsolicited Press. Her short story collection, Suffer/Rage, has recently been published by Dark Myth Publications.
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