Climb into it, why not? You’re already in bed.
Instead of saying things to yourself, let the self powder the head, russet colored slipping, like when girls and boys were kissing in the woods out behind school. You were always too scared to join them, but now, let that easy pleasure unstitch your brow, oh, isn’t this so nice? Just the one of us, and lying on our back, still, of their own volition, lift the kites, russet colored, the girls wear, you wear, gloss that smells, that tastes, of root beer. The bubbles, russet colored, in a glass that reads Coca Cola, but backwards in a mirror like a foreign chant, fill with smoke and let go let go your eyes onto your russet cheeks. Lids, russet colored, of a piece with the lashes, with the nose, that part where the glasses rose and make things russet colored. The evening clothes against your skin, the bed, its frame, everything you did today tomorrow forgotten and left, and fall, like leaves in autumn, russet colored, and all is same—the rocks, the sand, to the very grain, where ocean laps, is righteous.
In bellied mood, remove attachment to all colors save for russet. The room is russet, the air is russet. There is no blood, no crude oil, just a salad of arugula, radish, russet. No hunger. No pain. Even the rain is just one drop, and splashes dry, the hairs upon your head, each a tube of progress to a loosened corset filled with flowers, who all assume the russet, no need to ask, rub their petals and relax in their turgid velvet. Your toes are safely cordoned little piglets, running stilled and fed, topped off with little cherry caps of nail and fingertips, your lips, a darker russet. The moon, full, gravid, sensuous. Parting the clouds as she zooms closer to witness you, peering, laid upon a floating barge into the sea, The Russet Sea, unchartered by men, somewhere between Russia and a staircase to the stars, hovering in soft coronas, huddling to catch you, when you fall into their gloaming.
The pillow was your mother’s, cotton soft and fertile, the blankets protective of your downing, the sounds of the outside world in blend of reds and pinks and browns. The town you reach has spires you can tip toe across, and in a wide leaping freedom soothe each to each. Peach and white and pulse couple round about and russet. This weightlessness is easy gait to sure reward. Blessing is spelled sans b, sans letters, everything is warm, the heart eloped from cage and roaming in love’s easy tides. Climb in, why not? You’re already alive.
Sara Barnett
Sara Barnett is an award-winning artist in NYC, found in recording booths, on stage and screen, and at IMDb.COM. She’ll next be appearing as Laura in The Glass Menagerie (North Carolina’s Flat Rock Theatre). Her fiction and poetry can currently be found at Arsenic Lobster, Beautiful Losers, The Ginger Collect, Body Parts Magazine, and the upcoming issue of Anima Poetry, a UK review.
Artwork: Brooke Shaden
Website: https://brookeshaden.com/gallery/
Gingerbread House Lit Mag 