Two Poems
Linda King
like thin garments
someone is always mistaken…
about what becomes a talisman
barbed feathers a book of poems
there is no philosophy for this
the rest of the world lives
outside your window
where the forest marks the years
your alphabet grows bitter until
the words line up like thin garments
this is the price of damage done
twilight on a shipwreck
fire and ash darkness and rain
you will only pray for mercy
if you think someone is listening
and those ghosts you brought back
will need to be questioned
under caution
of glass and wishful thinking
your days have arranged themselves into before and after
a frayed reality theory of causal nexus
ash and dust memory
you are a woman who asks
all the wrong questions a woman who throws
the dice made of glass and wishful thinking
everything falls out of place while you search
this orphaned earth for that motherless child
that girl you were waiting
beside an abandoned bus stop
while your house burned
to the ground
Linda King is the author of five poetry collections including Reality Wayfarers (Shoe Music Press, 2015) and antibodies in the alphabet (BlazeVOX Books, 2019). Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals (including ē·rā/tiō ) in Canada and internationally. King lives and writes on The Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, Canada.