On “Monolith” by Kay Sage

nadia wolnisty

This is the end of useless light.
Think of the lights that are no
more. The last fireflies of the year—
your face when you used to talk about art.
My headlights make little difference
anymore, all turns to coffee grounds
feeling, driving along the shore.
And when my cigarette blooms
between my fingers,
what gesture, what punctuation,
for no one but ghosts in the garage.
All the useless light goes here,
this monolith. It’ll be in your throat
like a cough-drop, a gross glottal stop.
I learned that morticians use
spiked contacts to keep eyes
from opening. This, too, is a last communion.

***

Nadia Wolnisty is the editor-in-chief for ThimbleLitMag.com. Her work has appeared in Spry, Philosophical Idiot, Apogee, Anti-Heroin Chic, Blue Pepper Review, McNeese Review, Paper & Ink, and others. She has chapbooks from Cringe-Worthy Poetry Collective, Dancing Girl Press, and from Finishing Line Press and a full-length from Spartan.