three poems

by Heather Sweeney

FAILURE post pillage the child died during a storm a deer incarnate her mother a field of hunger and woody browse I borrow this glimpse for my new profile picture call it a throat of rain call it the failure of reenactment       SHED the gutted oak the farm I never this line is my axe this line a handle for the murk the lilac hum at my back a mantra filled meadow call me a row of black sewn trees a shed stocked with red wine and ibuprofen       CHARGE call me an unmarked island the discharge of April the echo of hands phrased as branches I mean my open palm my wired beak spiking the sand you are a burning boat and I am whatever now leaning toward a hole in the sky —

Heather Sweeney recently earned an MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics at Naropa University where she was the Allen Ginsberg Fellow.  Her chapbook Just Let Me Have This is forthcoming from Selcouth Station Press in the summer of 2018.  Most recently, her poetry appears or is forthcoming in Pacifica Literary Review, The Hunger, Moonchild, Expat Press, Bad Pony, Bombay Gin, Summer Stock, Shantih, and White Stag.  Currently, she lives in San Diego, California where she writes, does visual art, and teaches yoga.

Artwork by: Sarah Deckro Sarah Deckro is a writer, teacher, storyteller and amateur photographer who received a bachelor’s degree in History from Connecticut College. She currently lives and works as a preschool teacher in Boston, MA. Sarah’s poem “Girl Looking Out” is soon to be published in an anthology by Arachne Press.