Lane Larson
A loose pack of bodies
Cutting through the warm
Breath of the night
Our Moon, plump and lazy and
lying on her side
Watching her daughters with tired eyes
Mottled cotton-ball flowers sprout
From the brush
Like dabs of rust-blood
Across an olive-drab canvas
Of coastal sage and chaparral
Not too long ago
Scorched to dust
And now, to the tender touch:
Bone-dry, but (decidedly, spitefully) alive
Only revealed by the silent halo
Of a flickering flashlight
As our steps are eclipsed
By the heart-beat quiver of bats’ wings
The dark comes over us
And we women are enshrouded, enveloped
In a calm that only night brings
***
Lane Larson is a poet, visual artist, and film student currently residing in Los Angeles. Much of her work is inspired by the Southern California landscape, expressing and exploring the invisible threads connecting womanhood and the natural environment around us, as well as touching upon themes of the dark and macabre.