Day 14, Poet 14: Sarah Nichols

I Would Open
 
I have nothing
to do with explosions.
 
But there are
enough signs
 
in the no-life of
stars
 
to make
 
evacuation
mandatory.
 
I am as frail
as smoke.
 
a landscape of
gas and shadows.
 
Expansive. A
mystery,
 
unmendable.
 

Previously published in She May Be A Saint by Hermeneutic Chaos Press. 

Sources: Title: C.D. Wright, a phrase from “Dear Prisoner.” Wright: Deepstep Come Shining, “My Dear Affluent Reader,” and “Dear Prisoner.” Sylvia Plath: “Tulips,” “Insomniac,” “Stars Over the Dordogne,” “Widow,” and “The Rival.”


Sarah Nichols lives and writes in Connecticut. She is the author of four chapbooks, including Dreamland for Keeps (Porkbelly Press, forthcoming, 2018) and She May Be a Saint (Heremneutic Chaos Press, 2016). She is also the co-editor of Thank You for Swallowing, an online journal of feminist protest poetry. Her poems and essays have also appeared in Queen of Cups, The RS 500, Rogue Agent, and Ekphrastic Review.