appealing

The Maynard
Fall 2019

Angeline Schellenberg
0:00
 
 

Invocation

In place of birds, offer heaven your hymns of star-crossed nuance: miasma, lassitude, tremulous. They rise in the wildfire smoke that apricots the sky.

Offer the creeping bellflower, its taproots of toddler shoelaces. Unthwartable. The descant of crickets.

Stillness. That small brown body outside your front door. That you swaddled in a clean tea towel and laid in the hole beside the lilies, its spirit burning your arms like bread lifted from the oven.

It wanted to be found.