Like glass, onceBy Robin Long
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Like glass, once,
that placid surface reacts— acts as a mirror of the night sky or a sunrise snapshot. a capture of the status of life she is daily witness to the superficial the reeds—weeds rising from the earth beneath track and line the trampled, mottled pathways around her but the sweet center—tender victim of any tremor— speaks in long-releasing ripples that spread, swell, and blur the tension in lift, in hit, in change when sinking below breathing her shapes move in fluid ruins locked to a forgotten floor of fallen matter grown over with begged-for distortion. A dulled edge means dulled remembrance but in her best dress of morning mist she forgives the violence, the mess her quiet calm an elegy for whatever is— existence, now Robin Long is a queer poet, writer, and writing professor in Austin, Texas. Her poetry can be found or is forthcoming in American Writer’s Review by San Fedele Press, the 2021 Texas Poetry Calendar by Kallisto Gaia Press, Alexandria Quarterly, FEELS Zine, Twist in Time, 8 Poems, Literary Yard, and 45 Magazine. She is currently expanding her fiction thesis on the life of Emily Dickinson, The Other Dickinson; she can be found at theotherdickinson.com or on social media as @theotherdickinson.
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