Torn dresses, sarongs and bedclothes hang over autumn, shadows of stone churches,
clock above market, sunshine alien lights of an operating theater. Close my eyes
and I shrink, grow, small as pen nib, then ink spilling from swollen lids. I have lived
here for months and the room is still confused with whiskey boxes. My love
left me a linen nightdress and diary. Covers my lap, distressed leather, it opens,
hemlock forest where trees bleed and I float between lines (paper cuts before the end
or even the stars), it closes with belts and metal and long pin on a string.

 
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Biography

Ariel Dawn lives in Victoria, British Columbia. Her poems appear in places such as Ink Sweat & Tears, Ambit, Paper Swans, Queen Mob’s Tea House, and are forthcoming in Elbow Room, Canthius, (parenthetical), A Furious Hope. She is studying Tarot and finishing her first collection of poems.