Fallen Angel | Niccolo Seligman
And when I awoke, there was an angel in my bed
quivering and filthy from atmospheric dust
And he was crying because his wings were stripped
featherless by the free fall
And on the two plucked stumps on his back
clung two last downy feathers
And I told him you don’t want to go out there
anytime soon
And we’re the only ones left on this island
so there’s no one here to hurt us
And even if we had a boat
there’s no gas to feed it
And even if you could fly again
the mainlanders would shoot you down
And even if the whole history of the world happened differently
you’d still be safest here
And so he looked up at the clouds
through the gap in the corrugated metal
And he said that he would stay
for a while
And so we swam in the surf on mornings when the sky
was the same color as the cliffs
And we pulled tatters of plastic out from under the rocks
to twist into cord for later
And the ocean bared its trillions of tiny teeth
as it scraped our ankles with silt
And some evenings we watch the sun set
over the cliffs
And he chews up the jewelweed I gathered
spitting green into my hand
And I rub the cooling salve on the poison ivy
on his stumps
And we exhale
heat
And remember
And other evenings storms pass
over the cliffs
And rain would have drilled holes in the roofs of other houses
but not our roof because it is strong
And reinforced with heartstrings woven into the tarp
that we stitched together from the flotsam
And jetsam
on what’s left of the shore
And
And
And
And
Stretch Marks | Lucy Shirley
I try to love the stretch marks on my thighs.
I trace my fingers along the winding paths etched in my skin.
I follow the memories they hold: the living, the growing the thriving.
Sometimes I love the tiger stripes they paint, as if I am a warrior preparing for battle.
I push at these rivulets of broken skin, watching them fold and expand, translucent in the light.
I stare and I strive to love these fissures in my flesh.
But sometimes—sometimes I cry.