Retrograde Gave Up

By Madelyn Biven

Sea foam births apple seeds while tulips cry outside of their skin.  Their bulbs are death of stars; collapsed and lathering black air.  Charcoal lines exfoliate with burning rose petals.  Pottery wheels are spinning into infinity, which is the space between eruptions and flat tires.  Clay is populating crevasses of the city and sound is learning how to hush.  Artists drink gold to forget.  Sightlines invade the stillness of a lukewarm painting in which numb acrobats gargle acrylics with salt to decongest a rapid landscape.  On the polar end of a tight rope, fallen oaks are consuming aquamarine.  The table edge is falling in love with pencil lead and neither can cope with symmetry.  Red fades into green into peach tea, when swallowed, spits strawberry seeds through sugar-licked teeth.  Beehives burst in the sun; now everything is raw.  Apples are stunted in childhood and their stomachs fall out by lack of intuition, what sprouts is what’s left under the surface.  A human mold pushes through clay, escaping ruler lengths and becoming modest paste.  Infra neon’s are spilling balance and meditating to soak up nude grey ink stains.  Nobody knows how to float anymore. 

     Photo by Emmaly Wiederholt