THIS IS WHAT I WANT & THIS MEADOW by Despy Boutris

🏆 Pushcart Nominated
THIS IS WHAT I WANT
after Holly Prado
uprooted trees
filled with Earth’s art,
music notes in each particle
of long-forgotten wood. more:
answers. souls existing
then and now and forever.
desire. birdsong. poets
fossilizing warmth
and death’s descent. dust.
cypresses breaking
into wholeness
and me? mending.
green growing despite burning
red. sound branding the atmosphere.
a dog howling a song.
THIS MEADOW
By Despy Boutris
is a fading light cymbals crashing
is birds circling the sun daylight turning to wound
is a catch of breath voice’s distant echo
is fading constellations a city-wide power outage
is another species going extinct another night asleep in wheat
another night fading into bruise-like hues
Despy Boutris's writing has been published or is forthcoming in Copper Nickel, Ploughshares, Crazyhorse, American Poetry Review, The Gettysburg Review, Colorado Review, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. Currently, she teaches at the University of Houston and serves as Poetry Editor for Gulf Coast, Guest Editor for Palette Poetry and Frontier, and Editor-in-Chief of The West Review.
Art by Alex Kovacs