exodus
Whitney Rio-Ross
the baby’s lip curves like geese
winding home, yawns trails
of pearly syrup / imagine a world
without fireflies kindling
mother’s garden / the dog unearths
turtle eggs every year, has never
eaten one / even without god
twilight’s golden trees spell
hallelujah / fawns leap as the corn
sweetens, shrink back to forest edge
when harvest comes / i am
trying to lead you where
the mind shudders, to trace
my fault lines / i am trying
to lead you nowhere at all / the stray
freight train bucks revision / still,
our graveyard cypress craves a name
carved on her belly / do you remember
returning christ’s flesh to his plastic jar
when the candles went out / we will
leave this house with winter, let spring
glisten with hungry silk
Whitney Rio-Ross is the author of the chapbook Birthmarks (Wipf & Stock) and poetry editor for Fare Forward. Her recent poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Pinch, Whale Road Review, Stone Circle Review, SWING Journal, River Heron Review, and Susurrus. She lives with her family in Nashville, TN.