by Tin Fogdall
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AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News. |
Sun draws
around window blinds
eight gold lines:
twin parallelograms,
a pair of coffins,
two bucks.
Once again, my man’s
freckled skin,
robes on two hooks,
the ceiling still
whole, unpierced
by ammunition
—one more time the magazines
emptied elsewhere.
Let’s be honest:
I pulled on two socks,
two clever shoes so I could walk
on burning ground
without having to feel
the flames.
One more time, a body grows
cold under plastic.
It wasn’t me.
I strolled down the street,
brick by brick
in honeycombed
tessellations—
it went on
forever. Around my neck,
the smallest tiles.
See how the bones
sparkle.
Author’s note: CNN updated their school shooting statistics 17 hours ago (as of this writing), presumably to include Bend, OR. The number? 52.
Tin Fogdall was born in Seattle, adopted by New England, and is living in Vermont. Her work has appeared in The Threepenny Review, Poetry, The Missouri Review, The New Republic, and many other journals. She is a finalist for the National Poetry Series, a finalist in the Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize at The Missouri Review, a former New Hampshire Poetry Fellow, and has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize. She earned her M.A. in creative writing from Boston University. Follow her on Instagram @kmfogdall.
