Welcome today’s poem and more poetry coming in April at Sunlight, in honor of National Poetry Month.
by Sara Tantlinger
Gears grind
beneath my skin, scraping
against bone.
I dig
through scar tissue
to silence the grating.
I find
sand rather than blood
flowing through the rotating cogs.
I am counterclockwise.
Hands crack
through my twisted core,
revealing that I am Longcase;
a black swinging pendulum
for a heart. I shift
like tectonic plates,
fracturing
the flesh-Pangaea
of me because I am not skin.
I am desert.
Hushed footsteps
trample over the vastness of me,
leaving prints in the oasis of my soul.
I drift backward
on a jasmine-scented breeze
as the Earth spins forward.
In solitude I watch
stars explode and vanish my era
into darkness.
I am relic.
The horizon simmers,
marinating in a moment’s time that is unknown.
My silhouette will rumble
as I slip between the hourglass, waiting
for the world to move into the void.
I am shadow.
