Catherine Said, Don’t Go Clean Alone

ARIEL DAWN

I hang rose flannel from glass door curtain hooks and pull into tent secured with novels. Woolf, Yeats, Breton, Rhys, I withdraw into their worlds (darkly floral, starlit) and awaken with fire in the bed. Radio plays low classical. Nothing here, pillboxes emptied nights ago: confetti above oblivious city with black and white birds. In the hollow of my belly, a cat. Teeth and muscles chatter, jump. She said, seizures or death. I remember the storm that turned everything gold.

Laurence found a bottle in the sea: a scroll with number and address; no message, just the desire to be found, called by a stranger, a memory.

what i am is LOVE (gender is irrelevant) by benjamin lee hicks 2016; watercolour, ink, and pencil crayon

15.25 x 17.75 cm