The black sleeves come to rip the crust from
my morning bread.
In quips and snubs, indignant
spiral squawks—at devil’s daybreak, the mess
of lore
detaches— though I am already a body on fire.
Already I am
christened having stood
at the beach with Him combing the shoreline
for surf, spray,
a spritzer of virtue among a subterfuge of sea
glass—granules
of stillness unmoored
by the sudden eruption of an ocean installing
her famed
frigid depths up and up and up into a compilation,
a cackle
of stardust laughing,
black and blue and silver. I play solitary witness
to a sky
that speaks the same succinct mother tongue
as the eye
of Horus— his oath to Ra,
the gravity of natural law—rebuke of a deity
enraged
as if this is what the mind of man set to stirring
awake in dreams
only to wrestle a vicious
beautiful thing, then pray for scales or wings,
mythos or miracle
to save him.
Alison J. Valley is a poet, born and raised in Massachusetts, who has been a happy resident of Vermont for over 20 years. Alison began writing poetry at age 8 in a blue butterfly journal with a fancy silver pen with the hope of becoming fancy. Though her plan failed, Alison has continued to write raw and often visceral accounts of a life challenged by poverty, generational trauma, and addiction. She hopes to inspire others to feel safe enough to share their authentic, simple, beautiful selves.
12 poets 