"We Disappear in the Silver" by Adrianna Gordey

sea of wheat, the earth’s white hair sprouting from its scalp.

Lying side by side, we hide in the giggling grain, gossiping

with it, the star’s bedtime stories in the sky’s ceiling,

the models of constellations suggestively winking

reflected in our eyes and building celestial palaces in each pupil.

Our nervous systems fire rapidly by gas-produced spires.

The sparks of information intake like gunshots in synapses.

Before us, the infinity of the universe unravels,

strips into purity and reveals a world we have never seen.

The Moon’s lean, mountain curved spine rises

from the depths of the horizon and walks across the plain,

perfuming the air with dust motes, fireflies, and indigo skies

as a wolf welcomes her return deep down

in the marrow of bones she gave him. Welcome back, Mother,

he growls as he prowls protectively in her inner thigh.

She looks down at us, hears the blood stomping in our veins,

the fractions of our beating hearts making a portion whole;

her hands are two clouds above us, thunder and lightning her fingertips

that whips the wind into shadows and shades. Offering each of us

a blade of the wheat we lay in, we slice ourselves open

and allow her to pour the contents of wind and earth and water and fire

into our starving bodies.

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