Placing a heart in a deli meat slicer
Thin slices of memory folding in on itself
Sandwiched in-between loaves of missing you
Swallowed whole by an open grave
As ethereal hands guide my face side to side
Searching the crowd for the one
Who answers your name
Did you send an email to keep hope alive
An alphabet dance of hurt
Branding my skin with loss and not you’s
It’s never you no matter how often
The sound splices my lips in bitten denial
Spelling out never wanted this ending
Or you to orbit my thoughts
In the letting go to save me
Sage Ravenwood is a deaf Cherokee woman residing in upstate NY with her two rescue dogs, Bjarki and Yazhi, and her one-eyed cat Max. She is an outspoken advocate against animal cruelty and domestic violence. Her work can be found in Glass Poetry - Poets Resist, The Temz Review, Contrary, trampset, Pittsburgh Poetry Journal, Pioneertown Literary, Grain, Sundress Press anthology - The Familiar Wild: On Dogs and Poetry, The Rumpus, Lit Quarterly, PØST, Massachusetts Review, Savant-Garde, ANMLY (Anomaly), River Mouth Review, Native Skin, Santa Clara Review, and more forthcoming.
Twitter - https://twitter.com/SageRavenwood
FB - https://www.facebook.com/sage.ravenwood
Email – ravensquietscreams@gmail.com
https://sageravenwood.blogspot.com/