Withered

[rejectomorph]

Wilted day closes and the air outside cools, but it's still midday in here, the stillness still oppressive. The evening breeze is not breezing. The great, fleshy leaves of the mulberry tree hang limp, reflecting the last of the day's light from the fading sky. No rustling, no bobbing. Something has slaughtered the air. It is a cooling corpse, soon to stiffen, lying on the heated ground. This will never do. If only all the birds would flap their wings and take flight at once, perhaps it would stir enough air to at least make the curtains move.

But no, the birds refuse to help. They are going to bed. I shall be forced to resort to the noisy electric fan that ruins the placidity of the evening. On your heads be it , birds!

Hotter tomorrow. Oh, July.




Sunday Verse

How I Come to You

by Molly Peacock


Even a rock
has insides.
Smash one and see
how the shock

reveals the rough
dismantled gut
of a thing once dense.
Making the cut

into yourself,
maybe you hoped
for rock solid through.
That hope I hoped,

too. Dashed
on my rocks was my wish
of what I was. Angry,
dense and mulish,

I smashed myself and found my heart
a cave, ready to be
lived in. A start,

veined, unmined.
This is how I come to you:
broken,
not what I knew.