Ashley Mares is the author of Maddening Creatures (Aldrich Press, forthcoming), The Deer Longs for Streams of Water (Flutter Press), and A Dark, Breathing Heart (dancing girl press, forthcoming). Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Stirring, Whiskey Island, Menacing Hedge, Whale Road Review, Prelude, Hermeneutic Chaos, and others. She is currently completing her J.D. in Monterey, Ca, where she lives with her husband.



Ashley Mares

Vanishing

After the moth's wings beat to death. After the veins on my wrist protruded, asking for air. After a man spoke faster than a girl's body could run. After I read the carvings beneath my blouse. After I found her there: resting at her bone's end. This is a dream I didn't know I needed: when our bones look like they might never wake. Picture this: listening to the sound of rain on pavement — no, on grass, on leaves: let's talk of all the sounds I'm not familiar with — all the sounds my body dreams of being familiar with: the feel of mist on the veins on my wrist. Blood thirsty. Wings moving in a lamp-light illusion: beating against the walls of my chest: breathing. A small body rising and falling. The body: a living thing. The body: finally coming home.


Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
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