Crucible

by Mary Simmons

Red leaves, my lips, just enough light to wither under—
winter announces herself with a robin flying into the glass,
a fall like Icarus into the bare bushes, and no one awake
to know if he lived. The earth softens, to be buried, to sing.
I sing with a throat full of fire. Death in the margins.
Apples blacken on the branch. The wind hums for no one,
prays for no one, stitches a quilt of burnt barn wood for no one.
If we leave now, we may make it before sundown.
You wouldn’t believe it, if I told you how many lives
we’ve missed each other in, how many crows are unwanted women,
how soon the frost will creep over our dead and into all
we thought we knew how to love, our hands opening and opening.

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Mary Simmons is a queer writer from Cleveland, Ohio. She is a poetry MFA candidate at Bowling Green State University, where she is the managing editor for Mid-American Review. She has work in or forthcoming from Moon City Review, One Art, Beaver Magazine, Yalobusha Review, The Shore, Whale Road Review, and others.

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Image Credit: Irina Tall

Irina Tall (Novikova) is an artist, graphic artist, illustrator. She graduated from the State Academy of Slavic Cultures with a degree in art, and also has a bachelor’s degree in design.