The old military fortress suffocates
into the flanks of the interstate
like a stuffed lung pressing against the ribcage,
its reefs of alveoli, spawning alder sequins—
green then yellow—mottled, rust-flaked
in the shifting winds—commuting carbons/oxygens
during these nine months of expectation.
Somewhere, a soul is requesting a return to form:
Each unit of time herein seems to it a vessel—
discrete, hematinic—bodies clustering
beside the membrane of the guardrail
of some vanquished voice, and then another,
like platelets along a clotting
arterial wound; they retreat with a
contracting season, as if calling back
their substance into silence.
Above, the clouds appear
like mucous twisting in puddles of saliva—
a vague breadth, a slack muscle—
That lost tongue awakening
to find itself a new purpose in a new life,
itself a new skin, water into wine.
Maybe it’s me that pauses now
beneath the sine curve of this faint
planet’s throughway, and clasps the pulsing orb
bulging from behind the sheer silhouette
of the pelvis. Maybe it’s me
that finally allows passage for something
that needs the deep green of this earth—
A swaddle of light
opens just ahead. And then, I see it—
(I am the true color of all the birds)
Sonya is a writer and poet residing in the Pacific Northwest. Her work has appeared in Arcturus, Paraselene, Latin American Literary Review, Roanoke Review, and others. Her first book, One Row After/Bir Sıra Sonra, was published by First Matter Press in 2022. Her second book is forthcoming with South Broadway Press.
