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.
In the Dark my Flashlight
creates halos, makes angels appear
in graffiti. You hold fireflies in a jar
count holes in concrete walls like syllables
to lead me on. I navigate by fingerprint
in your wake. We discover
words, names, make sense of
hieroglyphics tattooed in the '60s.
This shirt holds sweat close
to skin, and I shiver while you slice
a nectarine, take abite, the juice of it
painting us. In the gloom,
this is just a sign, as is the motorcycle
in the parking lot beyond the lupines.
There are more forts in the woods
back of here, you tell me, grab
my hand. Daylight hits hard
we squint, spines of trees grotesque
in the heat. Root and sand, mosaic
of leaves underfoot. Let's go back
to the bunkers, where the dark is,
where our phantoms live, trophies
of our recklessness. Pumice
is the only way I've found to erase
the last traces of piety we carry
in our pockets, your hands
beneath my shirt, marble-heavy.