Poems by Lori Lamothe
Dear Egg
dear birdsong
singer of
chalkboard
scraping unsongs
dear anonymous
whose abbreviated
unwords crack
the ugly open
again and again
just to watch
it run yellow
down faces
dear whoever
you aren’t
for one sweet
burst of silence
hesitate
before splintering
into pieces
the shell that
holds this frail
boned world
inside it
Dear Lamp
in a room I’ve never
seen—cold as walls,
sharp as corners—
shine your yellow
sun bulb into folds
between curtains,
along spaces under
doors. Bestow
without elegance
your sturdy, factory-
grown glow, your
sensible radiance,
and if you can manage
it in those darkest hour-
glass moments
before dawn,
scatter every last
brightness across
all the unswept webs,
the silent insomniac night.
Lori Lamothe‘s third poetry collection, Kirlian Effect, is forthcoming in 2017 from FutureCycle Press. A three-time Pushcart nominee, she has also published several chapbooks, including Ouija in Suburbia (dancing girl press) and Diary in Irregular Ink (ELJ Editions). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Journal, Painted Bride Quarterly, Passages North, Redux, Verse Daily and elsewhere.