Under a Cerulean Sky

Under a Cerulean Sky Your waxy face floats. It’s a waning moon under a cerulean Californian sky. A headscarf the same hue, tied tight, envelops your hairless skull, stripped by cancer. Blues blend as if you are already in heaven. You want to be alive, bright but a...

Yekaterinaburg

I nestled in your petticoat folds snug amidst the silken underskirts where all your wealth was sewn. I lay beside a bird brooch, an emerald peacock whose inset diamond eyes lie lifeless against lacklustre sapphire cheeks. No plush velvet to cushion us but worn silk...
Doodlebugs

Doodlebugs

There is my mother on a flagstone floor, curled around her smaller sibling like a foetus, a tortoise withdrawn under a kitchen table hoping the whine won’t stop, praying the bombs don’t fall as she clutches the shreds of her dispersed family. This is my mother in...
Lili

Lili

You lay in my heart, as you lie there still in deep earth, you sleep, our blood shared until a fiery death. Now you are gone. Apart from you in sorrow I hold close your soul. Your eyes mirror mine in a half vision, in a life less than whole without you. Cherry drains...
Only a Dream

Only a Dream

You pulled me up as I lay in the wet grass, gently grasped my hand, not hurting as when you lived. Where is your hair? I queried. Your pate is bald. See those green tendrils? you said. Pluck them for me. I have lost all my own strands. I harvested whole sheaves and...