Content Warning: blood, dark themes
Jared Beloff - End of Prophecy
Artemis punctures
the clavicle of the moon
memory’s aim indelible
as the runnels of tears.
Niobe stares through
a pillar of sunlight
reading false auguries,
in children’s voices
rounding an empty basin
resonant in the rotten slick
of fallen leaves,
veins bloodied brown.
Years flake and drift
unrequited faces
like so many cracks
as the foundation settles.
She stands there still,
an absent, emptied mother
a pillar of light, inscrutable as salt
or the duties that hold us in place.
Jared Beloff is a teacher and poet who lives in Queens, NY with his wife and two daughters. You can find his work in Contrary Magazine, Rise Up Review, Gyroscope Review and elsewhere. You can find him online at www.jaredbeloff.com. Follow him on twitter @read_instead.
Photograph: Fallen by Amanda Eileen Rabaduex
Amanda Eileen Rabaduex is an Ohio native and Air Force veteran who has lived in nine different states and currently calls the Appalachian Mountains home. She works as an English Adjunct Instructor and is on the editorial board for The Penmen Review. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Olney Magazine, Blue River Review, Gyroscope Review, American Writers Review, and elsewhere.