What I had forgotten was like a chasm,
blue stones in a purple brook, a bird
perched on my thumb. Hands popped
through walls, lightning ripped the sky
like black paper. The future and steamy
past were like towns turned inside out,
our troubles placed on hold for at least
one night. Hay was cut, finally.
What we were hoping for is no longer
available. Pleasures are dim compared
∞
to the dawn as it speaks in a new voice.
I am sailing beyond the shadows that
hover like horses on a hillside, angels
in a cavalcade of silence. My first wish
was to be held and coddled, fleshly,
romantic, a tall dark stranger in a small
white town. Since then, I’ve carried
a stone on the highway of compassion,
let clouds embrace everything I do,
let emptiness cover me with its wings.
∞
I am a shadow now, buried in the wind.
I understand—or at least accept—
that when we die we travel a long
distance, swim the ineluctable river
of perfect knowledge, open our eyes
in a world where sun and rain are one,
where archons and exterminating
angels rise from the ocean like swords.
I will meet you there, in the tender
blue grass, 3,000 light years from home.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 28, Issue 2.
Michael Malan is editor of Cloudbank, a literary journal in Corvallis, Oregon. He is the winner of Meridian’s 2024 Editors’ Prize for Fiction. He is also the author of four books from Blue Light Press, including Midnight at the Chevron Station (2025, poetry and flash fiction). His work has appeared recently in Puerto del Sol, Lake Effect, Cincinnati Review, Washington Square Review, New American Writing, and Grist.
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