Layers of Light

By Emily Hizny

 

My soul can only crawl from its resting place 

away from the pure sun, 

fragile enough to sizzle and steam under its smoldering rays 

what I need is midnight, moonlight, twilight, 

a cavern of faint crystal glow, 

reflecting and refracting all the hues I need. 

 

Evening thoughts are stitched  

with the same tailoring as my soul, 

so easily tattered in brightness. 

We must be preserved in cool air 

like a painting, precious and crisp  

from our own company, 

untainted by rough-and-tumble touch. 

 

I could carve sediment and soil into a home, 

even take up the task of molding a volcano 

ash and basalt in my lungs, 

the magma a forbidden treasure 

exuding rays without matchstick ignition. 

The lava lies on its own, 

illuminating the onyx-coated air 

and melting to obsidian oblivion. 

 

Rain I could allow into my midnight dwelling, 

trace man-made roads and paths 

in search of puddles, 

little ponds of silver-scaled fish 

vaulting under moon rays 

this is a world I could live in, 

soft piano against the pattering rain 

echoing memories and lingering life. 

I can only exist in the half-light.  

 

 

 

​

A Spilling Angel

 

If I dig below my sunset scars 

maybe I’ll find the roots of their rays, 

starlit javelins with painful precision 

battling my skyline of sutures, 

stitches snipped and sculpted 

to halt the gushing gorge of sunshine, 

finally crafting a dam 

my flesh agreed to finis

 

 

Filigree

 

Such a fragile-forged 

trinket we are, interlocked 

with incorrect love. 

 

 

​

 

Avulsion

 

Fissures and cracks span chasms 

on x-ray screens, translucent skeleton 

in various shades of shattered. 

Simple injuries from quiet missteps  

and accidents drawing onlookers’ gaze 

sculpt healthy structures to rifts and fractures.  

 

My break resembled more of a crescent than a crevice, 

tiny lunar phase ripped from revolution with  

night-light shine, a little celestiality within me. 

For months my sliver stood in separate stasis, 

a painfully jinxed puzzle piece  

waiting to be placed back in its planet. 

 

Slowly my sinew began to heal, frost over  

in zealous rejuvenation  

with strings of doubled strength, 

aching quaking muscles relaxed 

and tendons let go of their loves, 

with the inevitable aid of time  

my vessel repaired its crested canyon 

with force and fusion 

I could not feel.