Found another rejected piece…did another little edit. Happy Monday!
Call It
it’s nearly ten & she’s still working. relativity is pain’s dialect. when resilience slips in, she exhales an eight count & then the dizzying inhalation like a thick black hair on the chin of her day that she can’t feel growing & she knows it never stops like she knows guns will exist as long as there’s hearts to point them at. it’s all work. the language. the limbs. the limns. the comfort of the pen between her fingers. the way she loops her Ps and Qs. handwriting is sanctuary & poetry tucks behind her knuckles with age. the discussion of labour sandwiches between vein & pulse. can she call it something else? it’s work to hold her eyelids up – sleep is on-deck gazing at the stars, rockets of rage rising. every submission a constellation prize: ecliptic energy. hope.
A FEW SPOTS STILL OPEN!
VANESSA SHIELDS 