By: Holly DeBevoise
Happy Solace
Guess what.
You don’t get to be alone anymore!
*confetti confetti confetti confetti*
Call the florist!
Beckon the critters,
the dimply ones!
Hang the forest!
Sew the lichen
into their small,
quiet forevers.
The cold months were already a favorite
so why not frost them
and sprinkle them
and stab them with candles
and light the candles.
There are perhaps too many
and therefore too much flame.
Here, what’s great about a fire
isolated to the cold months
is that it can be tossed out of
the narrative like an assumption.
To fall for each other
in the following smoke season:
snow of ash,
sun a hot pink button.
*ash ash ash ash*
No, no, no, no,
don’t yet remember
the toasted alone from before.
Here, have a blanket.
Yes, just one.
The Nocturnal Room
Unfounded as a frog donning socks! A frog elegant and a gentleman. Lithe fingers tipped for grasp, for rub. Only in swamp-dark. Only while bog-drunk.
To croak: “Meaningless between us”. The marsh’s din muffles our breaths while we sleep. Night creature’s chorus, throaty tithes in guttural refrains.
Herald the fern uncurling. Herald the fawn’s head in the mouth, between the teeth. Herald how lonely! Strong when lonely, according to you. Better for it, despite me near offering
touch. In spite of moss I tuck into your nest.
In spite of dead treetops
dismantling
their silhouettes of packed leaves
into a drove of blackbirds.
A black swarm of good messengers, caroling plural. Plural and warmer.
Holly DeBevoise is a poet, illustrator, and baker by trade. She holds a BA in Creative Writing from Florida State University. As a recipient of the 2017-2018 Made at Hugo House Fellowship, she has been working on a poetry manuscript that explores sleep paralysis, paranormal emissions, and the experience of trauma in a cloistered realm of feminine domesticity.
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