Jonathan Humphrey

In The Pale Wash, The Rose-Flush of Distance

Sycamore and lightning. Lightning and sycamore. There is a difference. Then again, there isn't. The two bleached forces locked like antlers. Sometimes the tree gets to sniff the proverbial doe's ass, other times the storm. I've picked up a splinter of charred wood and slept with it under my pillow for weeks on end. Every night's the same. A great white hand reaches through the lids and flickering eyes, parts the dopamine and crowds of women who know me by name, and squeezes the vanishing point of my mind like a sponge. I can't say what flows out, what eventually flows back in. But that's what it means to be an animal. You lift your leg, piss at a comfortable distance from the thistle, and walk on.

storm clouds
a dark patina
to the miner’s sink