‘I wish I were a blade of grass so I could dance all day,’ whispered the girl.
fiction
Micropoetry
Spitting out lies,
the words spilled
from your pillowy lips
and crumbled into dust
between the crease of
see-through footprints
& pavement.
Karla M. Alexander
Micropoetry
Red Fescue
We slip in unnoticed,
through the grassy whiskers
flaying your creamy skin
without a murmur,
seeking out our craggy spot
hidden amongst the flowered violets.
We lay together,
until the silver pond in the distance
becomes our bed sheet,
the hook of our ribs glued
like the fairy-rings
of mud-chips in our hair –
the sunset sinks further
into the bruise-blue of your eyes –
our mirror-bent reflection
now painted across the sky.
You look up,
catching greyless clouds at your fingertips.
Karla M. Alexander
Turtle Shells and Dipping Eggs
So, here we are.
It’s early November, and Rab is on his twenty-third cigarette since noon. I watch as he pulls deeply, as though it’s the last drag he’ll ever have.
The end burns bright, making my eyes hurt in the darkness. The butt crumples, defeated between his rough fingers. Unsticking it from his tacky lips, he discards. Resting a hand on his thigh and keeping his mouth closed, he clears his throat.
He is sitting to my right. I shift a little in my seat, and wait for him to answer.
Karla M. Alexander
Kate
Snow Globe
I want to hold your madness.
Wash it
through my fingers and
cup it in the hand-basket
I wove for you.
Let my fingers tug
ribbons of air from
between your lips
as you drink all the colour
from black and white photos.
Let the ash-buds of your eyes
fall like first snow, and settle
on the pencilmarks of your face –
naked to me,
as the paper you’re written on.
Karla M. Alexander
