What’s Still Remembered Somewhere Lying Around
as Shades of April Finds Broken Bones
by Ariana D. Den Bleyker

We set out naked on the street,
jumped fences into a pair of outstretched arms—

two to embrace; two to push away—
& fell halfway through, guided

by a sky stuffed wet with pitch,
the rain small tears needling

against a mysterious, endless tune
of winds discovering faith, shivering,

groping conflict, history collecting dirt, fear—
silence the only answer. We, all red inside,

move in uncomfortable skin,
poking it to reach bone, biting

into a sky already bitten by God
in times of famine. The rain spreads mirrors

across the road, & we make faces
as to not recognize ourselves.

 

 

About the Poet: Ariana D. Den Bleyker is a Pittsburgh native currently residing in New York’s Hudson Valley where she is a wife and mother of two. When she’s not writing, she’s spending time with her family and every once in a while sleeps. She is the author of three collections, eighteen chapbooks, three crime novellas, a novelette, and an experimental memoir. She hopes you’ll fall in love with her words.