in time blindness and moon months
and years of no sun, a shift
smaller than a snail shell.
eyes in dark corners,
edged in red-rimmed hail marys,
cigarettes between chapped lips,
laughter borne here
on the back of a mother
and buried in the garden.
flowers turn their gentle faces
toward a stifled sob of grief
and the earth turns with them.
joy is a shadow on a branch
looking like something else
not-quite-here not-quite-now,
a rendition of a borrowed thing.
new ideas aflame, in love—
a steady-on to exoskeletons and camouflage
and hands that do not scar the earth.
-blessed are the freaks
Kaela Prall 