natural selection
my childrenare water
& sand
ebb & flow
unfurling waves
of light
foam white
fingers clear
round breath
they are
the line
where blue
water becomes blue sky
Query
How do I bank light against coming darkness.Is enough stored beneath the surface
of my skin. Does sunlight become marrow
viscous flow—the center of my bones. And then what
will blood carry summer along subterranean rivers
to my body’s every continent—liver, spleen, gut, heart.
Can I reach out and enclose warmth in my palm—open—
will it bloom, a poppy, in my hand
to hand to my children their future too dark too see—screened
in blue light you can’t sleep by. How can I drink enough
of afternoon sun to make love last, earth last.
And If I do will I be lit from within—as Joan at the stake
as Jesus when he spoke of lilies then turned to dust.
Lay down in the fields. Lay down, lay it all down.
men & gods
they made usinto gods.
yes.
immutable
yes.
we were bodied
men—temporal?
yes.
what are we now?
strings of shifting
words,
echoes,
an electric
flicker
in a woman’s mind
what woman?
the one pinning us
to this page.
Twila Newey received her M.F.A. in Writing and Poetics from Naropa. She was a finalist for 2019 Coniston Prize at Radar Poetry and won honorable mention in 2019 Juxtaprose Poetry Prize. You can also find her poems at Green Mountains Review, Guesthouse Lit., Summerset Review, and other journals. Her first novel, “Sylvia”, was published this year from BCC Press. Twila is a poetry editor for Psaltry & Lyre and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Twitter: @motleybookshelf
Banner: a detail from ‘The Burgeoning World’, a digital art piece by Robert Frede Kenter, (c) 2021. Twitter: @frede_kenter
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