poem: darcy luetzow staddon

silvering

we didn’t even change

the moon today

isn’t that obvious

which begs the question:

are we there yet and how close

can a girl stand

to the fires in here before they

stink her with

gnash and betrayal

-

Not even realizing, the back of her was torn diary pages

and the slow sanded

sea turtle she’d seen

in old sun. 

-

‘you eat fire.’  she was 6 and so confident in her

pronouncement that

I knew it was true

about me.

good thing.

where this is is

burning on but

maybe also burning

out.

-

my father was operating

the fireplace correctly

but my bed hair

nested in smolders

all night

I was glad for it

            all that fire wearing

and eating silvering my

hair with scent of ash

bone and ash

paper

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about the writer: darcy luetzow staddon

Darcy Luetzow Staddon has written poetry and songs in a bedroom of yellow walls, in anxious graduate school library cubicles, in a barn loft on a Japanese farm. She has written to write her way out of things and to write her way through. And to go back the way she came, because she is always dropping things that are actually quite shiny and worth her attention. Darcy lives in Georgia, where the days speedwalk as her two young daughters seem to continually climb on her face.

Website: https://www.ihadahugeneedforlight.com/

Instagram: darcy_staddon