Katrina Kaye
I am a star,
collapsed,
receding into space.
I died
years before
Jupiter ever felt
my rays.
I crusted over,
a thousand times
destroyed.
But he is still
counting me as part
of his constellation.
I want to know
Jupiter as if he
craved my name.
As if I was
something more
than a flicker
of light,
echoed
in space.
Katrina Kaye
When is the last time
you held sand,
felt the fall
of each granule,
and wished for nothing
more than the warmth
your allowed to slip from hands?
I am lingering deep
in a list of what
could have been and
relishing the simple
I have attained.
I call them albas,
morning songs,
gibberish.
They are nothing to anyone,
but the melody
reminds me of a memory.
Yes, time has passed me;
forgotten my name
and kept
rolling through
like the weather,
like the waves,
like the pull of the moon.
These things aren’t forever
despite how far they stretch.
After all,
there is no such thing as forever.
Merely here and merely now.
Even our breath is compulsory.
Do we continue the ritual and fail,
or do we learn and do we go on?
Where does the fall take us,
if not to the next season?
“Impulse” is previously published in Saturday’s Sirens (2020).
Katrina Kaye
All the men
at the factory
bought her dinner
to congratulate
a job well done.
When she got home,
she promptly threw
it up and dressed
in the clothes he
left behind,
drinking mouthwash
like poison
and listening to the
heater drip. They will
never know all she
sacrificed for their
success.
“Success” is previously published in Rabbits for Luck (2016).
Chasing Rabbits 
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