Still, the river runs.

Blind to blood—

 

but if not the river,

you will lick

 

the furrows

in the earth hollow

 

because hunger,

because the golden of

 

your apocryphal

stories, hand-in-hand

 

our daughters, sons

who’ll never come,

 

a gun between you

and all I have

 

banished. Consider—

I will spin you red

 

under my fingers,

hold down each

 

godforsaken bullet

you want to use

 

in the mouth

of the unarmed sky,

 

firing until

the blues melt crimson

 

and nothing else

can be shot.

 

At the end of this

we will starve,

 

our children’s hands

yellowed

 

but gunless.

---

CLAIRE S. LEE is a student from Southern California. Her writing has been recognized by Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Ringling College, and the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, and can be found or is forthcoming in Alexandria Quarterly, A-Minor Magazine, Noble/Gas Qtrly, Rising Phoenix Review, Blue Marble Review, and *82 Review, among others. She is the Co-Editor-in-Chief of COUNTERCLOCK Journal and an editorial intern of The Blueshift Journal.