Not a prayer, really, but something like a spell. Enough to slip to the surface of truth.
I step into the yard and the mourning doves firework into the grey.
Soften the sleet-slick bones.
Flood, or cleansing: flip the coin.
After the storm, the air hums. Pools stretch thin enough to hide an inch of depth,
or burrow between the broken ribs of the earth. Superposition, until the splash.
I’ve given up guessing.
From the window, air blurs into mosaic. I stir my coffee and fragment the cream-heart.
What we need to stay awake: throat, breath, warmth. Hook & eye,
for the world we weave with words. I have left only blue and grey.
Without thunder, the thinnest things seem intact.
Remembrance, piano, overripe pears. So many synonyms for leaving, or lingering too long.
Yeats: Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
To think: something might still be awakening.
The ache in my wrists. Achromatic afternoons. Achilles, ink-stained heel. Anchor the chaos,
or alchemize it into an orchestra. Cauterize the echo, or it burns through the rain.
The present will poison you more than the past. In time, the fray of thread withers.
Listen closely and imagination stitches together the gaps. Patches in the voices
down the street, the face beneath the red umbrella glossed with monochrome.
A snatch of meeting, undertone of a phone conversation. Gesture brushing into embrace.
I remember now:
Cyclic connectedness, that is to say Carl Jung’s collective unconscious.
Raindrops populating in the troposphere and cumulating on the concrete.
Everything falls (again / in the end).
Eva Skelding is a young writer from the Boston area. An avid poet, she loves exploring quiet and beautiful emotions through imagery and symbolism. She has previously been recognized by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers and has attended several creative writing programs, including the Iowa and Kenyon workshops for young writers. When she’s not writing or reading, you can find her practicing calligraphy or curating Spotify playlists.