Anti-Heroin Chic
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Music
  • Art
  • Comedy
  • About Our Contributors
  • Masthead
  • Issues
  • About our contributors - 2019
  • About Our Contributors - 2020
  • About Our Contributors - 2021
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Music
  • Art
  • Comedy
  • About Our Contributors
  • Masthead
  • Issues
  • About our contributors - 2019
  • About Our Contributors - 2020
  • About Our Contributors - 2021
Search by typing & pressing enter

YOUR CART

​

3/28/2023 1 Comment

Poetry By Stephanie K. Merrill

Picture
      Thomas Wensing CC




The Great White Heron

stands to the nth power        begging me 
to pay tribute to the duendes dancing
her feet wet with the baptism of shallow water
sparkling in the arroyo         offering her holy white to the world
me wanting to rest in the eloquent silence of the morning
blessing the largeness of this present tense so staggering.

I remember packing my baggage to get to my mother
in time for her dying        the suitcase so heavy
I knew I would have to rely on the kindness of strangers
to help lift it into the overhead bins of the airplane.

I missed you 

and isn’t it something how        Mother       you are still
right here       and       I am still 
right here       both of us now gathering at these wetlands
and even though you had given up trying to find me
and even though I celebrated your great egret of flight
I will always regret my lateness.





Mourning Comes

Loneliness is breakfast 
in a dead love’s house
on the morning of their burial.
Even making the coffee 
is a solemn ceremony, a preparation
for the silent days to come.

Before you died 
I always loved a good funeral 
filled with the gravitas & 
the remembrances of a life fully lived--
so unlike a wedding with its fluff 
lacking all the tendrils of the dark.

After you shot yourself I slept for a year.
Last night the coyotes woke me 
screaming in the distance & 
by morning I knew
that one of the deer living 
in our greenbelt was dead.

Today I stand 
on the patio shrouded 
in the live 
oaks of summer &
I see your old blue Buick 
rising in the Eastern sky.
​



Stephanie K. Merrill (she / her) has poems published in The Rise Up Review, Feral: A Journal of Poetry and Art, UCity Review, Moist Poetry Journal, Amethyst Review, Dear Poetry Journal, One Art, Sage Cigarettes, and elsewhere. Stephanie K. Merrill is a Pushcart Prize nominee. She lives in Austin, Texas. 
​
1 Comment
Donna
4/6/2023 08:59:05 am

I know I am alive with emotions that make me feel something when I read your wonderful poetry. Without others expressions of their pain I stand alone. Thank you for helping me connect to life.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Write something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview.

    Archives

    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    March 2023
    December 2022
    October 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.