Banyon
This poem first appeared in The Muleskinner Journal in April 2022.
I pull my shirt up, watch
skin tighten to my belly in
fluorescent bathroom light at
4am, scared for what brightness
will do to the day, wiping away what might have been, as it drips down
my leg, flushing its inky redness. All phantom and shadow, silent
I can’t keep, silent I never
wanted, silent that holds
the flight of birds
who grab growth from tree top seeds,
stranglers, growing down instead of up.
Parasites, something
that saps, growing fat, growing warm,
leaving behind a cold that
hits the floor like a stone.
Last night a reminder that my body is battleground, hungry and lost.
Raising a white flag, asking
for mercy.
Moth
The only religion I know
is hay mowed down in the field once a year.
That we watch from the window, or flattened
to the field, bellies low as border collies.
I want to share, a dream.
So you can know
the way I understood she was dead before it happened.
So you can know
the moth that beats against the hayloft window refusing to die.
the moth that flies into the eye of the candle, refusing to know anything but light.
Scythe season brings hay high in the loft,
smells clover-sugar sweet, and itch-weed stale.
Cooking in the steeple of the A-Line roof
where heat and hush lull a wasp to the top of the barn
and douse us in sleep, songs
of a thousand insect hymns:
dreamt to life, so we know before the thud hits,
before the smell of medics seeps over the clover and itch weed,
that you will fall,
dropping from the hayloft like a stone.
Essie Martin (she/her) is a senior from Midcoast Maine. Essie enjoys long walks in the woods, collecting rocks by the ocean, harvesting seaweed, and looking at clouds. When she isn't studying, you can usually find her catching turtles at the puddle.