Darkness Has a Shape

KB Ballentine

 

Demon, demon, you have dumped me  

like Sylvia’s daddy into red poppies
t
hat blister my skin, settle into my heart

Nobody cared if the moon went black
when he shrugged and walked away

The trees groaned as he passed,
w
rens winging through shifting leaves

 Each knows where the others are

 When doubt clutches the belly, the brain
refuses to play its part

An actor on strike, nothing to say
lines lost or broken, tumbled

into the darkness of yesterday

falling away from tomorrow 

where everything is only waiting

 

***

KB Ballentine’s sixth collection, The Light Tears Loose, appeared this summer with Blue Light Press. Published in Crab Orchard Review and Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, among others, her work also appears in anthologies including In Plein Air (2017) and Carrying the Branch: Poets in Search of Peace (2017). Learn more at www.kbballentine.com.