ditch,

Trisia Eddy is a writer, editor and publisher of red nettle press, based in Edmonton, Alberta.  Her work has appeared in a variety of literary journals, including CV2, ::stonestone::, Misunderstandings Magazine, and Wicked Alice.  Current obsessions include Victorian-era taxidermists, abandoned psychiatric hospitals, and printmaking.

Re:  Haunt

When the first birds of earthquake season

arrive, do not be alone.  Today is shadowed. 

Wings covet the water, beaten.  Smother. 

Echo an ache outlined from abdomen, breast. 

Outer root systems.   In a perfect cup, she held

you.  Ovoid.  Coiled.  A limp ring soaked in grass,

eating weeds.  Eating blue-black, drinking rain. 

Thumbs all gloss, a pigeon-peck.  Delineate

the pebble frozen in place.  Legs pressed; an urn. 

Ground by hand, the tender fine.  Concerned

with existence, or obsolescence.

Rare, sated.  Facial and shower are calculated. 

A sure thing.  You, the oil blend.  Purifying

requires years.  You, the wall crawling.

Love water, the spine. 

Belly / hand / turntable.

Despite the curfew, spent too much.

Significant shoulders fell into

something.  A casement.  Celebrated

by spying what made this work,

through soft soles.  Road separates. 

Recovers.  Only thing needed, restoration. 

Installed uneven shins, scattered thighs. 

A body full of scars now.  Translation:

salt & pepper.  Remember to try.

The weight of being plays at gravity.  Sleep

inside blues, orange or green. Wasting,

plants drape themselves nonchalantly

upon winter. Dried, then watered by Persephone.

Despite your headache, the sun has decided

to quarter the seasons.  In thirds.  Traces run

north-south, barely block rays.  This way aches

and pains of the night before evaporate

into maroon, rivulets.  Run down chins,

pool in cleavage.  Tepid water saturates

body parts incessantly.

Creek melt, forming stories.  Shuttered

between sheets of raw ice.  Sheer layers

skin through city centres, thin glacier flow.

Her breasts grow at the sight, reformed

by younger proportions.  Suckled in the midst

of stars & satellites.  Desire drawn

from earlobe to clavicle.  Crushing

late nights, dispell odd myths.  Whispers

spelled more levels.  Frigid feet cracking

each thin vellum.  One, two, four

subtle tokens on the jawbone.  Touch.

At times like blood leak.  A singe.

Counting the moles, constellations

based on odours.  Then the jaw twists,

contrite.  Still sharing the same black,

found in piles at bedside, back of the closet.

At times swimming.  Only days left. 

No deadline so slight, mere breaths. 

A swollen continent dissolves, sand

by stem.  Pocketed mania, smooth

under sullen.  Needing only sleep, new

colour pressed by eardrum.  Vivid.