Sara Veglahn

from Another Random Heart

Buried where they fell

In the boneyard, bells are mellifluous--a burning of tinders, traces of matchstick. The sharp flashes are not electric or diamond-shaped, but boiling and wet. Muddy ground too soft to support a heavy body. I've tried to reconstruct the scene: right arm stretched across chest, forked branches in peat: the moment before a tally of each hair and fingerbone

*

Hospital says surgeon opened wrong side of patient's head

Instruments sterile and diamond-sharp--seems nothing is easy. Everything out of place. And trying. Always, there's a moment for the fortunate silence, like bowls stacked up blue and clean. You couldn't see another way with the diagrams in black & white, when blood is blue before turning red. You're still waiting for the methods to change, for oxygen to hit the cavity. Go, light each blue candle and blow each out. You know the glowing flame of mercy gives its own dimes.

*

Madonna of the rabbit

I've kept a list of each expression, a devotional method devised and upheld with frenetic steering. Heat and happenstance have hoodwinked my eloquent schemes, but, like a glove, I've sequestered my half-silent sister in the alphabetic realm of immaculate order. I've formed the other stable compound so as to be no longer available to reactions. Slight of hand does not always involve out-of-a-hat or slip-the-loop, but does contain sleep and an overabundance of salt.

*

It's important not to blossom before the season begins

With regard to sun, seasons are divided into four. Particular weather patterns result from the changing position and the same bright sound heard triple. My own scent is uninterrupted by wind or water. I move slowly like a damp hand. And your whisper rhythmic and turning forth behind breeze in ear on throat an unworked mass of puddled iron and handsome particles bent back slowly like a sapling.

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bio/notes