Tent pegs line themselves like teeth
into the waiting earth. Here,
due to time and rain, the earth
accepts invasion easily, separates
from itself easily.
The canvas zippers when touched.
No names are inscribed here.
No roof between me and the knife.
I resist such accommodations
and they resist my touch and the touch of clouds.
Purity has no place in this wasteland.
The horizon—like an average—
wavers in the distance, as I plan
my escape back to four plain walls
an immediate sanity.
In such vastness the mind shrinks
away. And, with such vastness
in mind, we unroll.
Sarah Mitchell-Jackson has had short fiction published in The Critical Pass Review and on the Conium Review website. Her debut novel, Ashes, will be out later in 2016, published by Blue Moon Publishers. You can read more of her work at: www.smitchjack.wordpress.com or tweet her: @SMitchJack. She would love to hear from you.
Sarah B. Boyle
Before You Look at the Plan,
Ask Yourself
Farah Ghafoor
my bird/my body
Vapor Trail
Sarah Mitchell-Jackson
Camping
William James
Deconstruction VI
Alejandro Escudé
The Poet’s Ancient Cursor
Tammy Robacker
Afterglow
My Husband Grows a Rose
Hybrid with No Thorns
Janet Dale
Affecting Phenomena
Raymund Reyes
The Barker
Laura Carter
from Good Horse
KJ Hannah Greenberg
Politics, Like Sardines
Nancy Devine
Teaching