by Despy Boutris
Every morning I wake
to myself. Every morning
I hope to be someone
different, or something:
an autumn leaf, a sand dollar,
something less
animate, maybe. At the window,
I watch the trees turn restless
in the breeze. And beyond
the trees are hills
turned gold from the sun,
which is to say brown,
which is to say dead.
I pluck blackberries,
snub the tupperware, my plan
to bake a pie,
bring my fingers up
to my lips to savor the sweetness.
All the places I’ve lived
and still I come back
to myself, to these brambles
rimming the fence of this house
I once thought haunted.
Some husk of what it once was:
peeling paint, weeds grown
waist-high. A bird flits
to the tree, perches
on a branch’s crook,
something gnarled and swollen
as a knuckle. No, it’s a nest.
About the photographer: Lia Mageira is a Greek photographer based in Athens. Her art has appeared in Spectaculum Magazine, Private Review Magazine, Press Pause Press Magazine, Tagree, and Edge of Humanity Magazine. She was nominated for a 2021 Best of the Net award for her art by Star 82 Review. Find her on Twitter @EvangeliaMagei1 and on Instagram @lia_mageira. She took the photo above in Chorto village, in Pelion mountain, Greece.
