The Composition of Shadows

The Composition of Shadows by Michael R. Burch “I made it out of a mouthful of air.”—W. B. Yeats We breathe and so we write; the night hums softly its accompaniment. Pale phosphors burn; the page we turn leads onward, and we smile, content. And what we mean we write to learn: the vowels of love, the consonants’ strange golden weight, each plosive’s shape— curved like the heart. Here, resonant, sounds’ shadows mass beneath bright glass like singing voles curled in a maze of blank white space. We touch a face— long-frozen words trapped in a glaze that insulates our hearts. Nowhere can love be found. Just shrieking air. Published by The Lyric, Candelabrum, Iambs & Trochees, Triplopia, Romantics Quarterly, Hidden Treasures, ImageNation (United Kingdom), Yellow Bat Review, Poetry Life & Times, Vallance Review, Poetica Victorian