Some saw a raven with ruptured feathers.
Some smelled the homeless millions pressed
inside a drop of blood. Some felt dark planets
tilting. One planet, covered in octopus,
its arms entwined with acid from a toxic lockbox.
Another with the ghosts of dead tree frogs dancing
on shagbark. Some heard the dreams of the unborn
clinking cracked glasses. Some wept, clawing
the horizon. No Vacancy signs were visible
only in ice. Some thought they heard a saw blade
snap, but others insisted it was only a man
strangling on solar wind. Some swore they could
hear him rasp, throat choked on buckshot,
chanting a cantus firmus of forget-me nots.
Image: “The Raven” by Bill Strain, licensed under CC 2.0.
Wendy Drexler is a recipient of a 2022 artist fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Her fourth collection, Notes from the Column of Memory, was published in September 2022 by Terrapin Books. Her poems have appeared in or are forthcoming in Barrow Street, J Journal, Lily Poetry Review, Nimrod, Pangyrus, Prairie Schooner, Salamander, Solstice, The Atlanta Review, The Mid-American Review, The Sun, and The Threepenny Review, among others. She was the poet in residence at New Mission High School in Hyde Park, MA, from 2018 to 2023 and served as programming co-chair for the New England Poetry Club from 2016-2024.
Latest posts by Wendy Drexler (see all)
- Reconstructed Sapphic Fragment #145 and Erasure of Reconstructed Sapphic Fragment #145 - August 23, 2024
- The Passion Flower - April 11, 2023
- Types of Animals - November 19, 2020