Torn

Delicate colorful scales
Between grass blades and paws
Frayed wing needing tenderness
Shades of black and orange brown
Flutter cupped inside palm lines
Wing shed scales powdered
Dust coating fingertips
Finger perch to low branch
Days after saving
A sunburnt bruise floats the air
Butterfly visiting grief
Spirit hitchhiking
Between wings
That wasn’t you
You wouldn’t have returned
As something that couldn’t stay
Longer than a season

Sept / Oct  2023

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Sage Ravenwood is a deaf Cherokee woman residing in upstate NY with her two rescue dogs Bjarki and Yazhi. She is an outspoken advocate against animal cruelty and domestic violence. Her work can be found in The Temz Review, Contrary, Pioneertown Literary, Grain, Sundress Press anthology - The Familiar Wild: On Dogs and Poetry, The Rumpus, Lit Quarterly, PØST, Massachusetts Review, Savant-Garde, ANMLY (Anomaly), River Mouth Review, Native Skin Lit, Santa Clara Review, The Normal School, UCity Review, Punk Noir, Janus Literary, Jelly Bucket, Colorado Review, Pangyrus, PRISM International, 128 Lit, A Gathering of the Tribes, Ponder Review, and more. Her book, ‘Everything That Hurt Us Becomes a Ghost’ is forthcoming from Gallaudet University Press Fall 2023.

Art: Cam Pietralunga. Visitation. Acrylic on canvas.