Flares


Some part of me is in prison.
One of my gestures was, then wasn't,

then was a bullet. I feel like I've become
a card in the Tarot deck, but nothing

major. And there are rumors
going--I know them as a slight

irritation, the taste in my throat
that signals sickness.

Sun flares make the world strange.
Something is changing shape,

and I've heard it's my heart.




The Liquids


If we are vessels filled
with all that has been made one

by our love, and if loss is a siphon
drawing away from us what we hold dear,

splashing it back into the world--thus emptied
by grief, do we float higher, do we bob

lightly over this ocean of all
that love has broken?


- James Bertolino