By Jen Schalliol
turning white with light or milk
the color of music says one
and another says: obscene
the moon’s white face. this year is white
like each one gone before it no,
never gone: they mount and it’s been ages
entire eras painted thick
we fail to read into
the snows, the clouds, the thrones
of heaven, anointed skin and purity
or shadows, sepulchers death
and plagues an ominous mass
of cells black cancer
invoke fear with shadow with the night
I tell you death has no shade and
light is empty, falls like water on its
object illuminates brown
the same as sallow let’s retire
opposites the careless turn
of phrase handcuffed to
ideas of clean or sinister
and facedown on the page
shake the lexicon trace back
our steps before they kill again
Jen Schalliol, a Chicago native and Pushcart nominee, received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her chapbook, Means of Access, was printed through The Kenyon Review, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Salt Magazine, Landscapes, decomP, Gapers Block, RHINO, Farrago’s Wainscot, and elsewhere.
