Nighted

Image by Unknown Artist (circa 1560) / Getty Open Content Program

Submission to Visual Verse Anthology

(i) rising

sleep 
that sunless swale

smears its powdered tincture
across my face

I change buoyancy
in notion’s tide

an epilogue of bubbles
regards my wake

and a dead tree
juggles the sun


(ii) falling

armour tinkles and
rainbows hug the moon

I’m bucked off
by a nightmare

her hooves 
like thunder at my cheek

in my helmet seventeen stars
like quilted eyeballs

announce a landing
pillow-short and spear-bound

comfort drops away
through sinuous silk

to the ravenous calm 
of oblivion