Adrienne J. Odasso
Leeds, UK
I’ve spent some time in this quiet afterlife dreaming journeys just beyond my reach.
The men by the waterside watch me as I watch them, lift their eyes to seek
my knees as I flick ash against the sky. There is nothing here that I could want more than wishing for this silence. I’ll teach my mind to be still, my thoughts to swim below in the breezes skimming askance
the brook. My stillborn poems will haunt this small and squared space long after I’m gone. I turn from my watch alone
to close the latch, desiring little else
than plum-skin and smoke between my teeth.