The Poetry Project

Gabrielle Octavia Rucker

SO OFTEN NO MEANING ASSIGNED

tread lightly
there is a wrong way

everything holds
weight

grows wider
through dreamtime

steady coaxing
fuels rotation

every birthing
a cycle

a vessel to drive higher
our repenting

a ripple of truth
scratched thin

uncalculated
in its avoidance

PRACTICE FOR MY BIRTHDAY

All around
me were trees,
a small cut of wood
I couldn't exit
though I tried.
As a child, during
a thunderstorm, while
I was getting my
hair braided, I
watched the oak
out front struck down
by a bolt of
lightning.
The shriek of bark
cracking spilt
through the house.
The braid
snatched tighter
against me
The table shook.
It was a fantastic sight,
the fire that sat in the
hull leftover glowing
steady for one
whole night.
I got older,
I remembered
a lot. Still remember
a lot: that soft plume
of smoke always hovering
the open air.
Everything
began to make
more sense, less too
as the glass dome fell
reflecting off the distant
moving of the blurry
Otherside. Only now,
do I realize what
I’m chasing: the thrill
of the last time something
fell out of the sky.
Up until that point I was
having fun in my own
way. I was practicing
my handwriting. I
was making myself
useful to myself
as one must & then
what?

Issue 18

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