Silent by Nicole Amsler My skeletal fingers tent over my chest A makeshift cage for my aching, thrumming heart Pain can still slide in Like a fume, a moth, miasma But my fingers clench, at the ready To beat back that which threatens. Futile dispersion. But they do not reach, do not beckon, call They do not beseech or even pray. My hands only bear witness, gnarled and still. They do not speak the anguish Instead words perish, congealed and unknowable A barnacle, a lesion, an ectopic pearl The unspoken, Brailled in scar tissue. From Nicole Amsler: Seldom a poet, I write stunningly dull marketing copy as my day job and magical realism fiction at night. I am a writer conference groupie, a middle aged cosplayer, and a book pimp. I've moved eleven times in my 20+ year marriage and Indiana is the only place I've lived twice.
Flying Island is the Online Literary Journal of the Indiana Writers Center, accepting submissions from Midwest residents and those with significant ties to the Midwest.