Rose Morales has a BA in English Literature from Rutgers University, which has never gotten her employment, an IQ of 142 that has never gotten her invited to MENSA (she would respectably decline anyway), one 23 year old daughter who has brought her great joy, and one husband of 25 years who more or less has too. She has written poetry since the age of 7, has been published, but, aside from a $100 prize won in high school, has never been paid. She lives in Miami, Florida.

Caught in the tangle

of branches where the

brown leaves are just disguises

for the twists and turns

of a grief gnarled trunk.

The lies that can blink

in the corner of an eye,

the poisons that tear apart

the treacherous ground

beyond the root.

Rain is acidic,

not the welcome relief

of a mid Spring shower,

but the bitter brew

of abandoned tears.

No upward turn

of the tongue for this;

the cause of pustule eruptions.

Hope was the promise

of a balmy Summer;

not the months that came hot

with burnt sand and drought.

The dryness of August

gave September’s apples

the sour aftertaste

of stunted, crabbed fruit.

Gather what cores you still find

in this dark shade of gray days.

Mourning finds you hard at work,

making pies from the hearts

of black crows.

I see spots before my eyes
that glitter clear with mirror image;
negatives that are never developed,
acids that work their way
into the tiniest pores.

Everything devoid of color.

There are no blacks and whites in my world.
Dark and light diverge,
then coalesce into something more than both,
but less than either.

Shining through cloudy prism.

Matter matters not.
Stand before the learning gun,
shot through the head with a bullet
of knowledge.
There still is no no or yes,

only but and why.

I stand alone against
the coming of a new day,
though the hue of it
never crosses my mind.
My eyes have forever
been this self same way.
I stare up at a fiery sun

Covered with a grimy film of gray.