Poetry by Dion O'Reilly

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Dazzler

                                                                                                I’m goin where the sun keeps shining Harry Nillson

He skitched behind her go-kart
on a skateboard

while the sky broke open 
and crows filled the gaps.

Cars lined the beach road
waiting to be stolen
 
and he stole them like a genius
with a hanger and a knife.

Then they’d drive up the coast,
the air dry, full of a power

that wicked from their blood
the backhands and broken teeth

the rifle shots and lost dads.

More light and light
it grew

more light and light.

The day blazed over them,

to the west, the ocean 
crazed with silver, 

cradling boats.

She didn’t know what she wanted.
She’d listen to the same song

over and over.

Every time, it hurt.




Dion O'Reilly’s debut collection, Ghost Dogs, was shortlisted for The Catamaran Prize and The Eric Hoffer Award among others. Her second book, Sadness of the Apex Predator, was chosen by University of Wisconsin's Cornerstone Press for its Portage Poetry Series of new and emerging voices. Her work appears in The Sun, Rattle, Cincinnati Review, The Slowdown, Verse Daily and elsewhere. She is a podcaster at The Hive Poetry Collective, leads poetry workshops, and is a reader for Catamaran Literary Quarterly. She splits her time between a ranch in the Santa Cruz Mountains and a residence in Bellingham, Washington.