Sometimes lies are better,
in the distance or in your heart.
The reckless April wind chases
your good intentions. Afterwards,
bathed in sunlight, you read
a story with echoes and your sadness
blooms. Later, rivers of crows
fill the sky. Yackety-yack
on their way to sleep. Nothing is better
than sleep, where you’re anchored.
Otherwise, you tell yourself little
spoonfuls of facts about this life.
But the mind dissembles
or goes backward and you cannot
pull the reins. The days of Lent
diminish as your sins scatter
like beach glass among the wrack.
Mercedes Lawry is the author of Small Measures, forthcoming from Twelve Winters Press, and three chapbooks, the latest, In the Early Garden with Reason, which was selected by Molly Peacock for the 2018 WaterSedge Chapbook Contest. Her poetry has appeared in such journals as Poetry, Nimrod, and Prairie Schooner. Mercedes’s work has been nominated five times for a Pushcart Prize and her fiction was a semi-finalist in The Best Small Fictions 2016. Additionally, she’s published stories and poems for children. She lives in Seattle. Follow her on twitter @mercwrites
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