belly up

by Mattingly Gleason

In the beginning, there was  

Darkness – 

a pinpoint of bright orange light, 

a mingling of silent, greedy bodies. 

I remember my first words, 

the first night I brought tears 

to my father’s eyes because 

despite this blanket-wrapped flesh, 

death was a shhh, it’s ok away. 

I remember the music of moonlight,

dancing in daisy fields – 

the beginning 

of a welcomed end. 

Loneliness a child can squeeze 

like a ragged doll, 

the sun laying its head among a sorbet sky,  

the pungent smell of a lake flipped 

belly up like a rotten fish. 

Mattingly Gleason is a visual artist and poet from Eugene, Oregon, and is as rare to find in the wild as Bigfoot herself. Her work appears in The Raven Review, Stone Pacific Zine, and L’Esprit Literary Review, among others.