a poem about peaches

imagine joy instead: a single daffodil,

a minuscule robin

pulling pleasures from soil, from

stark branches. imagine

how dense a carpet of green

dots awaits, coiled within these colds.

allow warfare to end:

no mustard gas, no digging your own

grave. we did not cross bridges,

we did not thieve, did not survive

for you to invent a burden

of black pebbles. unclasp those dead

fingers. 

---

spontaneous remission

how sonorous

your silence this morning:

flock of starlings

scissoring mottled clouds,

clank of a spoon in a cup of

green tea,      miniature echoing.

having escaped the narrative

captivity of dreams, i sit

opposite the window, weaving

minutes into a cast, a sling,

spreading dawn like a balm

on every scab.

it is not glorious. there will be

no medal or photograph.     

but i will live. 

---

LORELEI BACHT grew up all over before settling in Asia with an Albino Enchi ball python and a stack of Welsh poetry. Her work has appeared in Miracle Monocle, Roanoke Review, The Night Heron Barks, Jet Fuel, and elsewhere. She makes infrequent visits to Instagram @lorelei.bacht.writer and Twitter @bachtlorelei and has not yet found the time to arrange her poems into a collection.