Exhalations
after Liz Berry
Hot, the rhythm of our exhalations is a pigeon flock
disturbed. Without reference, my dialect is unplaced
so swap me your snicket for a cut and I’ll lend you
my bones like brittle spires, help you find a direction.
We could use the maps held in our heads unknowingly
overlapping, with hard-traced line and contentious
boundaries. But the truth is I would rather be left here
in the heart of it—an aftermath, unbridled, bare-hoofed,
growing feral in the fret. You’ll feel it on the margins
of the Lee, how our friction gets kneaded in and out.
Zelda Chappel writes, often on the backs of things. Her work can be found in several publications both online and in print including Popshot, Obsessed with Pipework, Lampeter Review, HARK and The Interpreters House. Her debut collection, The Girl in the Dog-tooth Coat was released in July 2015 from Bare Fiction. She tweets, sometimes a little too often as @ZeldaChappel