the chartreuse breath of moths. poppy seeds brushed by shadow.
at night the heart gathers fragments—the heart never sleeps.

ladders of clownfish. behold—the four-chambered cirque,
displaying detritus spilled from the dark. a tin whistle’s violet
weeds. roots of indigo grass.

the hidden sixth chamber revels in dream. dust shaken from star
rags. a coyote’s eyes, unfurling moonstone leaves.

the heart has its prerogatives—one of them, to serve as the body’s
metronome. slivers of coal from the crow’s mouth. the raindrop’s
lyrical wails.

absinthe drawn from a chameleon well. the heart, a toy castle of
mirrors. its drawbridge, the wing of a junco.

blueprints limned in the cellar by sepia crabs. with its two atriums,
a train rolls over moon tracks. carrying peacocks from the attics of
sorrow. masks left by raccoons.

the heart kayak floats in the wake formed by melted snow. opal
needles of ice darning the dark. a forget-me-not collage of frost.

Margaret Walther is a retired librarian from the Denver metro area and a past president of Columbine Poets, an organization to promote poetry in Colorado. She has been a guest editor for Buffalo Bones, and has poems published or forthcoming in many journals, including Connecticut Review, anderbo.com, Quarterly West, Naugatuck River Review, Fugue, The Anemone Sidecar, Sweet: A Literary Confection, and Nimrod.

This poem originally appeared in the Spring 2011 print issue of Phoebe.

"untitled" by Jennifer Stone