The Black Napkin Volume 1 Issue 7 | Page 12

8

Three Poems by jenna danoy

Heart Murmurs

Bubblegum bursts of embarrassment

tangled in my hair,

and those sparkling yellow

dimple-stars poke holes in my

vision, like your

guitar-strum heartbeat.

I crack my knuckles tough—

what are the rules of ardence

when you see it in the god-flung clouds

of a late summer afternoon? I fret within like the creaking bones

of the Tappan Zee, still too strong

to fracture under stress.

Is the value of a relationship

in metric or imperial? I want to show

my work. Instead I feel the

solar-bounding crush of air on my lungs,

in those tiny crevices it shouldn't be,

where you have been,

where you will stay. Instead, I

settle into blindness.

 

 

Illustration by Chelsi Rossi

Instagram: @_chiles