Photo by Yan Berthemy on Unsplash
don’t lay me down
under tornado green skies
but let me dust gentle
against oceans I’ve never seen
break my bones into fragments
and mosaic them into mountains
of granite and coal to build
into steel for cities
make me into marble floors
of foreign manors
or broken windows in abandoned
factories no longer turning
muscle and sinew into machine
scatter my teeth like birdseed
let me feed the robins
and the crows alike
give my cells to sing light
into the lines of new hands
trace the eyes of fresh faces
and save my heart only
for the red earth
and the wild winds
Gary Reddin grew up in Southwest Oklahoma among the cicada songs and tornado sirens. His writing was born in this dissonance. He holds an MFA from Lindenwood University. His work has most recently appeared in Cathexis Northwest Press, Oklahoma Today, and Bright Flash Literary Magazine. His book “Quantum Entanglement” is forthcoming from Mouthfeel Press in 2023. He can be found online @andrewreddin on Twitter.