by Carrie Greenlaw

The room was too quiet, so I left.

I took my nervous feet to pound
the dark curl of island parting the river,
all drizzling dark and raining stones.

The world rang with a new hollowness –
seismic,
unnamable,
what was your name?

Where the trail morassed into black frog swamp
I traveled through the uncut grass,
rabbits slinging lifted tails alongside me
like handkerchiefs,
their eyes pinwheeling in frantic electric glare.

Under wet branches, the black on black bloom
of wings inches from my panting mouth –
a songbird thrown from
the cradle of sleep
in arrhythmic panic.

The blood pounding in our
skulls alike, the finch, the hares
the men who sleep in sullen rooms.

My heart is a headlamp – it shines
on any movement that catches my eye

but I’m forced to wait for the shadows
to resolve themselves.
 

Carrie Greenlaw is a poet and artist residing on the North Side of Pittsburgh. Her work has been published in The Pittsburgh Poetry Review. She lives low and lives slow.