How obvious of us—to strut prayer
so porous like jasmine on the trellis
& sprawl language like sun-dried delights.
What is luck but distance—a disguised grace
slippage in the fold—a secret lurid dearth
yawning the myth of sinkholed altars.
In your home of olive, plum—what remains
gilded? What gold do you whisper
alongside the fracturing surfaces?
Furtive of luck to dodge the marbled moon
like strands of garlic—braided with violet
forget-me-knots swelled over the husk.
Secrets lie in the soil beneath the hedgerow—
What fruitful growth consoles its roots? I must
know what sustains the mind’s stone of silence.
Ashley Taylor is the founder of River City Revue and the author of Metamorphosis of Narcissus, part of a chaplet series by queer and trans poets published by Damaged Goods Press, 2019. Their writing has been honored with an Artist Enrichment Grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women and a Lambda Literary Fellowship Award from Sundress Academy for the Arts. Ashley holds a BA and MA in English from the University of Louisville and an MFA from the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing at Spalding University. They are currently completing a Master’s in Special Education and work as an ECE English teacher for students with learning and behavioral disabilities in Louisville, Kentucky.