Breath & Shadow
Summer 2022 - Vol. 19, Issue 3
"Weeds" and "Empty"
written by
Sharmon Gazaway
Weeds
Roots white as cabbage veins
outlandish and barefoot
they cling to their staked-out
turf. Squatters they’ve dug in tent pegs
deep put on a show
of ratty flowers like Boho skirts
in an attempt to charm or disarm
you—they plan to stay.
Though despised, you can’t help but admire
these future evictees.
Their sheer variety, their tenacity. You wonder
what’s so valuable
they cramp into a death grip on the sod
flip seeds like coins. But deep down
you know. They are in a life and death
struggle to the bitter
burnt end—and you
you merely want thyme.
Empty
Your voice was warm
like this bowl
solid as this hollow
wooden vessel
your voice
on its time-smoothed lip
I hear murmuring
I do
I’m sure I do.
Sharmon's work has appeared in The Forge Literary Magazine, Enchanted Conversation, New Myths, Metaphorosis, Welter, The Society of Classical Poets Journal IX, Ghost Orchid Press, and elsewhere in literary and speculative publications. You can find her work in the anthology, Love Letters to Poe Volume 1, and her poetry is featured in Rhonda Parrish's anthology, Dark Waters. Sharmon writes from the Deep South where she lives beside an antebellum cemetery haunted by the jungle-wild cries of pileated woodpeckers.