The Blaze
On figures almost faceless, light rips through light. Trees are trimmed to nearly unseen thinness with this increasing distance. They entered the cold cathedral. Roars warned of a storm, followed by rain, further followed by lightning. It’s darker. Blind hours split down (as they often do) into tiny crystals of phantom color. The blaze drags through bags of domestic trash burning in a rusty backyard barrel, an armor of red-orange metal nesting in rural seclusion. Woods that are the inventor’s wig curled by wind have changed him. Fabulists talk salt, speaking in lengthy chains. Somewhere, servants’ hands are placed perfectly under plates carried to a king. In another story, there’s a candy- green eyed one who trains thieves, before bodies deflate to mush and white flash mist, with pieces of armor buried in the thick southern call.
Terrell Jamal Terry’s poems have appeared in West Branch, Green Mountains Review, Washington Square Review, cream city review, Columbia Poetry Review, Juked, and elsewhere. He resides in Raleigh, NC.