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Ritual Goodbyes
I dreamt you soft-edged
last night – a captained apparition
tucked beneath the wild wood’s scrape
on naked knees of cloud.
Three ravens heavy with rain
decorated the stone before you,
slabbed beside mossed-over frogs
on a stump of oak.
In dreams the dead
are perpetual too,
but that’s not news.
I’ve squandered you;
that’s not news either.
In the forest of our minds,
even that little scar of a path
heals over with grass.
Berry gems gleam
on feral underbellies of the brush;
like misted remnants of day,
they glistening disappear –
and in luminous,
burgundy succession,
stain the elf-child’s tongue.
Kataryna Zharkovna is a poet born in Serbia, grown in Canada, and honed in Siberia. She holds an English Specialist’s degree from the University of Toronto, and her work can be found or forthcoming in Underwood Press, Neologism, The Astorian, and others. When not agonizing over giving form to the formless, she spends time befriending swans and taking care of two impish but charming children.