with missing appendages
hermit crab strikes
your hand desperate
for love we bury him
for the tide
far from the children
near the pier
seagulls, and you wear
old denim
black dyed
and I swallow
the broken timbre
that is your choice
this california is nothing
but dark
apartment corners
blankets enveloping
empty girl-grey tonight,
tea drinking alone
typeface as monochrome
as twilight,
as old sci-fi
on two-way radio

Sherre Vernon is an educator, a seeker of a mystical grammar, and a 2019 recipient of the Parent-Writer Fellowship at MVICW. She has two award-winning chapbooks: Green Ink Wings (prose) and The Name is Perilous (poetry). Readers describe Sherre’s work as heartbreaking, richly layered, lyrical and intelligent. To read more of her work visit http://www.sherrevernon.com/publications