Poetry by Lillian Sickler

              hnt6581 CC



bat fishing with Rachel 
 
when I lived with my parents 
when I still slept underneath 
 
a roof— 
my favorite sister and I 
 
would sit on the shingles  
and fish for bats 
 
with long nets meant 
for minnows. 
 
the sky would hold 
its breath 
 
and turn dark indigo, 
but we’d stay out 
 
until that flimsy periwinkle 
line appeared 
 
on the event horizon and we’d talk 
about times that we wanted 
 
to forget. like the morning 
our father hit that squirrel 
 
with the secondhand Chevy 
and it didn’t die 
 
right away, just writhed in the road 
like it had been electrocuted. 
 
my sister would do the same thing 
when she laughed 
 
as when she cried: 
bend over and touch 
 
her knees, holding 
her breath like it was 
 
something about 
to fly away



​
looking at the sun 
 
a rainbow of mums spilled across the doorway to September & the rich  
folks headed to Saratoga to cast their bets on thoroughbred racing.  
 
your boyfriend stood on his mohair sofa, your beloved Mississippi  
pooling around his ankles as his feet sank into the sun-bleached cushions 
 
i am on my way to heaven he said it only with his hands as he waited 
for your neighbors to line up spherical bales of hay in the ornery fields 
 
ponies in the starting gate— 
beautiful is fast. fast is beautiful. 
 
in Tennessee, 200 feet of quarry water held you up like a prize fighter, 
your heart cherried with crimson clay.  
 
maybe it is possible that the adults are lying about the dangers of looking  
directly at the sun. because you didn’t look— 
 
& you missed the pink lights 
of his fingernails as the starting pistol bucked in his sweat-shined hands 
 
& you are cursed with the fact that you became a part of the world 
—a part of that quarry—just as he was leaving it 

​

Lillian Sickler is a poet, writer, and birth doula living in Knoxville, Tennessee. Her work can be found in Cosmonauts Avenue, Ghost City Press, Vagabond City, Noble / Gas Quarterly, and upcoming issues of Hobart and Crab Fat Magazine. She has two cats named Laika and Junebug.

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