Rebecca Givens Rolland
Narrative of the Caveman Nearing Light
Cost of green shells smatters:
simple enough. Other stuff─
leak, rip at the windowpane,
rush in the dreary speck-
light, beckoned dream of
a never-seen hill—none of that
matters to me. There’s nothing
I can’t abide. Wild orange
wings flick in patterns, press
flesh, a white-flecked peel. If
I reckon long enough with bolts,
wearied blossoms, I’ll catch
a weather castle, rumbling by:
imported cloud-hung ramparts,
reeds planed to elbows, water
at the curvature of knees. Park
still far off, civilization a keening
cracked vowel, a deceptive
dropped-leaf table, no longer
dear. A match strikes my name:
I claim a warmer version, deny
the bitter root its dragging on. No
sign of drafted sheetrock, beams
sky-lit—only sunlit passage, ear’s
sound-sap, echo of world, world, word.
Rebecca Givens Rolland won the 2011 Dana Award in Short Fiction, her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Witness, Kenyon Review, Cincinnati Review, Gettysburg Review, Georgia Review, Many Mountains Moving, Versal, American Letters & Commentary, and Meridian. Her first book, The Wreck of Birds, won the 2011 May Sarton New Hampshire First Book Prize and was published by Bauhan Publishing. Visit her website here: http://www.rebeccarolland.com/
Return to January 2017 Edition
Cost of green shells smatters:
simple enough. Other stuff─
leak, rip at the windowpane,
rush in the dreary speck-
light, beckoned dream of
a never-seen hill—none of that
matters to me. There’s nothing
I can’t abide. Wild orange
wings flick in patterns, press
flesh, a white-flecked peel. If
I reckon long enough with bolts,
wearied blossoms, I’ll catch
a weather castle, rumbling by:
imported cloud-hung ramparts,
reeds planed to elbows, water
at the curvature of knees. Park
still far off, civilization a keening
cracked vowel, a deceptive
dropped-leaf table, no longer
dear. A match strikes my name:
I claim a warmer version, deny
the bitter root its dragging on. No
sign of drafted sheetrock, beams
sky-lit—only sunlit passage, ear’s
sound-sap, echo of world, world, word.
Rebecca Givens Rolland won the 2011 Dana Award in Short Fiction, her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Witness, Kenyon Review, Cincinnati Review, Gettysburg Review, Georgia Review, Many Mountains Moving, Versal, American Letters & Commentary, and Meridian. Her first book, The Wreck of Birds, won the 2011 May Sarton New Hampshire First Book Prize and was published by Bauhan Publishing. Visit her website here: http://www.rebeccarolland.com/
Return to January 2017 Edition