FAMKE VEENSTRA-ASHMORE

 

I want to see how you might break

a butterfly on its back

 

press its wings into pages which crave

your story, which call 

 

for you peel off its scales like petals. 

A measured voice that

 

inscribes those glossy lights as if 

born from hand –

 

we’re sat on the edge of the grate,

those iron bars bending,

 

and layered, a path we never

travelled now reformed.

 

We share whispers and a soot mirage:

two empty cans 

 

rattle with our voices, a chiming arrangement,

ourselves as hands, 

 

our feet in lines, meet eyes, roaming in circles: 

become pretty 

 

thoughts streamlined, pretty thoughts on

an amber string 

 


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Mountain View

Children, like seven high rise buildings (i)

against a white board, strung along. 

Say I want to be 

 

your pretty thoughts fettering your neck 

and ankles.