Shelly’s Heart—A Poem by Sanguine Woods

Only when the magic
Leaves us,
Wide-eyed and withered,
Shells of nothing new,
Down-blown and resting
In a cornfield,
Do we comprehend
Harvest. Only when
The clay is drying,
Like the charcoal husk
Of Shelley’s heart
Wrapped in paper
In a desk drawer. Closer,
She croons, whose
Lips can
Conjure moons.
Repurposed, soon—
Like Wagner’s sticks,
All angles and twine,
And turning a Foucault line
In crisp autumn wind,
Telling stories from a
Branch, watching all those
Dropping things,
Lamenting red or
Golding—
Blood-orange,
Umber,
Like a scolding—
Coursing veins speak thinner words,
Thread-bare as summer’s coat—
Spider web, quivering
Where sleeves were, once,
A spectral face,
A nettled bit of widow’s
Lace, moans like a haunting.

(c)2017 by Sanguine Woods. All rights reserved.

(Art: Pinterest)