Vicki Thornton


One Gray February

Do you remember

picking blackberries

as rain ripe clouds

raced the sky

you said

the sweetest fruit

was always the hardest to find

thorns tore at my softness

I spat bitter fruit

from juice stained lips

only to discover

you told the truth


Flotsam

they float side by side

not touching or speaking

bumping into the flow of conversation

that laps their table with thirsty tongues

she lost in a whirlpool of thoughts

where the flotsam can’t reach shore

he treads water

adrift their girl cuts herself

bleeding for attention

their boy fights the tide

of a world he can’t yet fathom

they coast to the swell

of rolling music

his arms harbour her brittleness

allowed to lead her in this dance

their bodies swaying remembering

the rhythm of when they did care

they drift back to their seats

not touching or speaking

just drowning


at first

he feared his frail flesh

his own stark mortality

marked on cold concrete walls

he stared into rust stained waters

hoping to find strength

a belief in permanence

-the machines mocked him

the silence called to him

an emptiness waiting his word

he was God

his voice filled the nothing

made it whole

created an entity

in his own image

he looked to the storm slurred skies

to the blackness that boiled

capturing the greyness

he listened for a sound

confirmation that he

was not alone

-the silence echoed

now

the silence screams at him

words he doesn’t understand

he, who was God

shreds his name

till nothing

whole remains, discovers

He is nobody


Healing

i have a stone in my heart

the size of a three month

fetus

a cold weight fallen to my womb

betrayer of trust

carried and nurtured

in the coffin of my uterus

they

will tear it from me

take what is dead

while i am to go on

Living