"Atlas Moves the World" Emma Johnson-Rivard

Nov 21, 2023
1 min read

The poet gathers stones. Mirroring, she says, the kaleidoscope eyes of black cat luck, ex-girlfriend luck, a seven-year spell. What do you find? What do you build when your head is full of stones? She opened her bones up to expose the marrow, proof positive. Roses bloomed inside. What a brilliant, brutal garden. What brilliant, brutal rocks. These petal-soft dreams, these hands in mine. Roses on the tongue, and under the skin.

They spill out. They adapt to the light.

Emma Johnson-Rivard lives in Maryland. Her work has appeared in Fearsome Critters, Coffin Bell, Moon City Review, and others.

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