a literary journal published by the Black Earth Institute dedicated to re-forging the links between art and spirit, earth and society
A growing forgetfulness.
A pocket for the land
to slip leftovers in.
A mute button made of vines.
A net made to conceal battalions.
A weed made of words.
A secret written in a green pen
on a green page
in a book of green stories.
Furnished with fern
tendrils, tender.
The self when it
unspools, rewinds
takes over,
is not kind.
takes the light
and turns it
inward, crawls
over the bark of trees
harmlessly. It doesn’t
even bring its leaves
along, abandoning them
after youth.
It lets its brief bloom
fall away
like the address of the house
you once loved,
your old bike
still leaning
against the garage wall.
Ghost name blooming
on the bark
of a street sign
in a landfill.
Ghost flower branding
a dark world
with white neon.
Late night
at the closed
ice cream stand,
you can melt
with its petals
into the swelter
of rising tides
of drought and smoke
of hunger and everything
that grew you up then threw you out.
If there is anything left
to be haunted
let the orchid
scrawl its ghost graffiti
on silvering wood.
Let these words
be the ghost orchid
whose roots cling
to the roof of your mouth.
Sarah Ann Winn’s first book, Alma Almanac (Barrow Street, 2017) won the Barrow Street Book Prize, judged by Elaine Equi. She is also the author of five chapbooks, most recently, Ever After the End Matter (Porkbelly Press, 2019). Her writing has appeared in Five Points, Massachusetts Review, Nashville Review, Quarterly West, Smartish Pace, and elsewhere. She’s
taught classes for the Loft Literary Center, the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, and the Poetry Foundation. Sarah is the founder of Poet Camp, a creative community where she leads online classes, jumpstarts and cozy writing retreats.
©2024 Black Earth Institute. All rights reserved. | ISSN# 2327-784X | Site Admin