Cynthia Neely
Cracked
What seeds take root in the cracks of your mind?
Not holy, or wholly formed around the edges,
not a sideways glimpse of swallowtails or finches,
not jazz or jellyroll, or belly laugh you’d only find
naked as a myth – not truth. The thankless pendulum
swings, your pericardium cracks again, brings
you to your knees. Your heart’s a bird that sings
though it’s never known the sky. The humdrum
evening stings. You know it’s time to exorcize
these weeds that proliferate in your skull. Star
thistle, knapweed, salsify. My God, how far
away it seems, the calm of night, the bedsheets’ sighs.
You want the day to be embalmed, to end
but not to rise again. To sleep to sleep to sleep and then
Cynthia Neely is the author of Flight Path (Aldrich Press, 2014) and the chapbooks Broken Water (2011, winner of the Hazel Lipa Prize from Flyway: Journal of Writing and Environment), Passing Through Blue Earth (2016, winner of the Bright Hill Press Chapbook Contest) and Hopewell Bay (2017, limited edition from Seven Kitchens Press). Her poems have appeared in Pontoon Poetry, Bellevue Literary Review, Crab Creek Review, Raven Chronicles and Terrain.org, as well as in a number of anthologies. Neely holds a BA from Goddard College and an MFA in poetry from Pacific University.
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