by Helen Ivory | Jan 7, 2023 | Featured, Poetry
Consider the snowdrop How it toils through barren months, withstands snow and frost with alchemy of proteins and alkaloids in its sap. How it forges lance-shaped leaves hard-tipped to pierce frozen earth, gifts fresh growth to shaded places. How...
by Helen Ivory | Jan 6, 2023 | Featured, Prose
The Ewer Once upon a time, a young man and a young woman almost discovered a genie in a bottle. The Genie, trapped inside a ewer older than Narmer, was a steal. Set on a shelf inside Endwell Antiques, the artifact, competing with pretty vases,...
by Helen Ivory | Jan 5, 2023 | Featured, Poetry
Hope is for a smile. Not the cheery smile of The medication is excellent these days but the broad smile of You can go home now, everything is fine. Hope is getting up and checking yourself knowing that one day soon you’ll be worse –...
by Helen Ivory | Jan 4, 2023 | Featured, Poetry
Forest Facial If I’m not rock, then I’m depth letters, If I’m not stone, then I’m clean persuasion, If I’m not dark, then I’m chisel and mallet, If I’m never cerebral, then I’ll be static weather. So blow in my direction, Wear down my features,...
by Helen Ivory | Jan 3, 2023 | Featured, Poetry
Self-Portrait as Road Runner You with your elaborate schemes of entrapment, your hunting parties, moonshine and shot-gun weddings, your Sunday-school socials for girls to glue birdseed and pasta on prayer plaques, sew aprons with Singers– this desert was...
by Helen Ivory | Jan 3, 2023 | Featured, Poetry
What Comes After Death? A duck stood on my grave the other day I felt my wits travel up my spine And settle between my shoulder blades Each one, pulling further from the other Until I am split down the middle After a moment the feeling is gone And...
