by Katharine Schulz
A poisonous winter
infection spreads from the wellspring
off to your left, Notice the
striations in the ice, threatening my gestation
my breath is too heavy from underneath the lakes surface,
causing these breakage points
Deeply exhale
the bubble escapes and explodes against the cold
tapping at the glass like
Like a neon light shot across highway midnights
Brilliant billboard lights that threaten a casanova sunset
forty-five thousand tiny bulbs,
bubbling in the darkness
A candy apple that melts in the moon,
coating the yellow lines of the two-lane blacktop
as they turn a sickly shade of green
Heavy, like an ice pick’s fall,
the lights strike the car crash victim through her finger painted windshield
her tapestry of childbirth
The identity of her family marring her vision, causing the ribbons in her vision:
astigmatism
A stigmata
Spindled lights run right down her forehead and the bridge of her nose
The lumens force the cracks in her skin apart,
clawing into her bloodstream and singing nerve endings on the way down
Her series of blood lines makes her a Christmas tree
A mermaid to guide the Night Ship home
or maybe a lighthouse in the thick, flurried fog of a pestilential season
Paint two contoured figures behind funhouse glass
of its own design
laughing as its wicked air fills your home
freezing your own two feet to your
woodgrain tabernacle sunshine floors
© 2026 Katharine Schulz All rights reserved.
Click or tap here to see Katharine Schulz’s profile.
Use the “Leave a Comment” form below to share comments on this piece.