A Poem By Loretta Clodfelter

by Mark Bibbins, Editor

from Pythia Says

Pythia says missile guidance systems are locked on locked out door slamming the slopes where cattle graze it’s just a satellite or he is winking and dropping into the folds her water worn down over time channeling anger and something else besides

Wood smoke dark blue sky the walls have blackened in a strategy for asset allocation it tastes like candy canyon cannons passing strange or what could be left the bends it starts far away and when we were young

A stone dropped and each concentric ring feels farther than the last the in-between light time of soft violence and hard-core regretting

I told you and felt this importance slipping as though the sun a flower a seed this people are ungovernable or one time I remember simulator set to activate isolate audio screaming down on the avenue

Loretta Clodfelter is a writer living in the Bay Area. Her work has appeared in Pom2, Mirage #4/Period(ical), Coconut, and Cricket Online Review. She also edits the poetry journal There.

When it’s cold outside you can always come in to The Poetry Section’s archives and soothe yourself with some nice warming poems. You may contact the editor at [email protected].