"The Halo of You was Pulled Apart" by Ronda Broatch

Ronda Broatch

Ronda Broatch

Ronda Broatch is the author of Shedding Our Skins, (Finishing Line Press, 2008) and Some Other Eden, (2005). Her work has been published in RHINO, Atlanta Review, Blackbird, and Fire On Her Tongue: An Anthology of Contemporary Women's Poetry (Two Sylvias Press). Nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Ronda is the recipient of an Artist Trust GAP Grant, and a May Swenson Poetry Award finalist. Moon Path Press will publish her next collection, due out in spring 2015. A Seattle native, Ronda is a graduate of the University of Washington. Currently, she edits the literary journal, Crab Creek Review.

The Halo of You was Pulled Apart

Days I chip my obsidian skin
Say bulb of percussion      say flint

Be sparrow      unsparing of word

I have these boxes    :    of bleeding heart
tulips               of daffodils                

Little halos     gravity-torn

Each night my red fist pulses in my ear
Each night I say no

Mother I delay you     Let’s return

to pounding spearheads     to ribs
unhinging     the snap and separation

of sparrows     The tulip loves

its little fist     Sometimes    
I see in soil    little souls       splinters

of halo    Moon rise at noon

It’s been thirteen years   Mother
the homily promised lamplight   

said artist    said shapeshift

I keep these specimens boxed     
In spring I plant you again