drove her here
from windswept duties

dross and glitter and rumor
a paper clip, a gum wrapper

a brass button
stamped with an anchor

she lays them at the sun’s gold
feet.

seeping shadows fatly spent
lay waste

to the day of small things.
she dissolves into the mouth

of night
nurses her wounds
for tomorrow’s work.

/

Sharmon Gazaway is a Dwarf Stars Award finalist. Her work appears in both literary and speculative journals such as The Forge Literary Magazine, Welter, Tiny Spoon, Third Wednesday, The Society of Classical Poets Journal IX, Metaphorosis, and in anthologies published by Air and Nothingness Press, Blackspot Books, Brigids Gate Press, and others. Sharmon writes from the Deep South of the US where she lives beside a historic cemetery haunted by the wild cries of pileated woodpeckers. Instagram @sharmongazaway.