Collapse

Katrina Kaye

I had a poem
on my tongue
when I closed
my eyes.

It was stolen
by sleep.

A tiny collapse
of dreams
and empires,
only grand
because of its
destruction.

“Collapse” is previously published in Rabbit for Luck (2016).

Again

Katrina Kaye

kill darlings

again;
hang them by the neck,
swing

from old oak in evening breeze.

leave them
out to dry,

skin stretch against rocks
reflect sun’s heat as they bleach to leather.

split silence with their scream.

It is the only way to wash clean.

“Again” is previously published in Chasing Rabbits (2016).

Katrina Kaye

We are not songbirds;

we are the wild mustangs,
the feral beasts
who thundered across the open.

We beat out passion
with untamed hooves
and scream our songs
like trumpets,

leaving behind broken
larkspur and hoof prints
in the mountain mud.

We do not embrace,
but find familiarity
in our propinquity and
the gentle rubbing of noses.

“Poets” is previously published in September (2014) and somewhere else that I can’t seem to remember.