Content Warning: violence, dark themes
Kali Richmond - In the dark
we have stargazing. No more pouring over pages of soft vellum
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to contemplate prior epics and calamities. Look up,
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they’re punctured into sky via countless tips of Luna’s canines –
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her oily breath a vast wasteland of asphyxiation and ice.
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Even in the city
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when clouds part you can make out the trine of Orion’s Belt,
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detect the russet burr of Mars, feel her swell. Amid ripe heat
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of corroding bodies there are flecks of Hyperborea, chill creeping
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under your clothes, twining your neck; chin rising in anticipation:
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pick me, take me.
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Drive deep into the countryside and the heaving luminosity
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of her unfettered domain will settle heavy on your lungs, will snatch
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the air from your veins. Beneath her spread you grasp greed:
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voracious. Supping at your distillation, she could kill, if so inclined.
Kali Richmond is a lapsed video artist living in the north of England. Her poetry has featured in various publications, including Gutter, The Babel Tower, Green Ink Poetry, Coven, Jaden Magazine, Marble Magazine and Porridge. Her debut pamphlet, a work of ecopoetry, Gradual Reduction to Bone, is out with Nine Pens.
Photograph: Holding up the Barn by Karin Hedetniemi
Karin Hedetniemi is a nonfiction writer and street photographer from Vancouver Island, Canada, inspired by the natural world, and ordinary beauty in quiet places. Her photos and cover images are recently published in CutBank, Pithead Chapel, Invisible City, Barren Magazine, Parentheses, and nominated for Best of the Net from The Bitchin' Kitsch. Find Karin on Twitter/Instagram @karinhedet and AGoldenHour.com.