Crowstep
poetry journal
Other Yellow Fruit
The core of a lemon had sealed
all wounds. I played the piano
at the old folks home.
Infancy was rocked like
nightfall splashing through
the open window. I was laughing at
the separation of a larva and his fly–
cut out from underneath the
same maple tree. The sky bled
in deep colors and I was strong.
I, the grand daughter–
the wine dark ocean spilling over
the mountaintop, am now a chrysalis
standing at the Memorial of the
Murdered Jews of Europe.
The place whispers say my name
and think of me. I think of little
army men simulating war. I think
of them losing thought. I am
swiftly brought to kneeling
in the trenches. 6 raw beanstalks
provoke the angry heat of the day.
Blocks sit on pomegranates
skinning the broken language.
My grandfather’s name is
etched into the granite powder of the
memorial. An unsettled dream then
comes knocking from the grave.
The stalks gravitate to the witching hour.
The witch howls. A soldier is molting
in the socket of sound, an intercourse
between the grainy severed arm—
long limber in green, and the Earth
that did not want this.The weasel is
unburying the air, holding
the blood and the soldier of which
he is still very much a part of.
6 black birds dissolve into winter’s icy traps.
The place is not interesting for only death
and its ordinary boundaries. 6 winters
kill the men of Bergen-Belsen.
6 posthumous drugged beetles.
The cow moos and flies up the nostril.
French border police molest the crossing
of thin wasting prisoners and the preacher
wanting change. Grandfather’s name is
resurrected. Church’s heavy eyelids
fall down onto God. The clock has rotated
into a new beginning.
Nicole Flaherty Kimball is an emerging poet from Utah, USA. Nicole’s work is published or forthcoming in Sky Island Journal, Sunspot Literary Journal, Mom Egg Review, Club Plum Literary Magazine, Book of Matches Lit and several others. She was the recipient of the Pat Richards and Joe Beaumont Scholarship and is pursuing a Bachelor's Degree at Utah Valley University.