a
poem by
Cheryl Snell
> bio
Promo for the Future
Coasting on a slant of light to the shuttered bay
can make a child believe. To witness the night sky
take myopic stars prisoner, hold them mute
and shivering for hours, ruins everything.
Winter dusk gives up beer colored sun
with a last scrawl across violet air. Snow hills
disappear. Electric cones of light flung out of windows
land on blue shadows, crawling like soldiers
between the trees.
You're not safe, the child whispers to the twinkling shovel,
to the silent still Bear. Indigo shadows seep inside the room,
fill it with ghosts leading the way on to adulthood. One child
pulls apart her sibling’s fist to put her own fingers there.
They stand linked by flesh, drawing in the strength of all
who came before: when each searches the other’s eyes,
they see an endless iteration of answers to their question;
variations on a theme for singers of unrehearsed songs.
