by L. Lois
The sky is empty, no hint of cloud, the heavy, dark arc of vultures sweeping low over a world of forgetting. They move in silence, gliding like quick lies from innumerable podcast hosts, words slipping through open doors, hands out for cash, voices telling us there’s nothing left but acquiescence. A slumber here, a kind of wasting, my monsters creep like political dinosaurs too ancient to roar, just the hum of their presence, the crazy crawl of flies, the air filled with echoes of something about to be erased.
I thought once of building something here—
an arts sanctuary or maybe a place for fragile things, the way my
mother cupped her hands
around a broken bird, holding it in her palms.
Softest down cradled,
a thing that didn’t know it could die.
Like a passkey made of wax,
the promise of security so thin I felt it would slip away
under the heat of my fingers.
But we kept pressing forward—
as if to stave off the tragedies of suffering,
telling ourselves that calm and order were always enough.
This is where reason goes to sleep,
but we forget, in the moments between dusk and dawn.
We, too, nod along. We’re calling out, offering our liquor to the night, keeping our doors open and lax, hoping something real will slip through and fill the vacuum hissing threats. But, still, here they come— the vultures. Vile promises sweeping low over places we thought too tender and narrow for their wings. In the last pale light, I see my monsters—they may hide, too, as I fall asleep against our best interests. The faintest memory of feathers, floating where they tromped. No noise at all, except the whimper.
L. Lois lives in an urban hermitage where trauma-informed themes flow during walks by the ocean. Her poems have appeared in Alchemy Magazine, Progenitor Journal, Poetry Breakfast, 300 Days of Sun, Twisted Vine, and other literary publications.