BROWSE Columns
✕
Photograph by Michael Howarth (2022)
Death, Perfect
a stillness
will appear in your body
in the ravines and hollows
the sunlight filling
(a breath
we had not noticed—
trill of a little wren)
this will be the present
you’ve waited for
without knowing
leaves detaching
one by one
stems silent
(the winter trees)
Reverberation
on the other side
a place inside
perfectly still
the rest the holidays
the snow the gray blue
flaking
thought closed down
we were given
some other paths
short flight a lamp
it was too high
in the rain sneaking about
covering my face
standing in murk
a bad dream nightdress
getting dark
Arlene Naganawa is the author of the chapbooks, Private Graveyard (Gribble Press), The Scarecrow Bride (Red Bird Chapbooks,) The Ark and the Bear (Floating Bridge Press), and We Were Talking About When We Had Bodies (Ravenna Press). Her work has appeared in The Inflectionist Review, Crab Creek Reviews, Waxwing, Fatal Flaw, Whale Road Review, and previously in LaPiccioletta Barca. She currently works with Pongo Poetry Project, writing with youth in detention. Website: www.arlenenaganawa.com
