Friday, June 20, 2025

gia civerolo


stones in her pockets


Did Virginia Woolf 

Caress each stone

Before she put them

Into her pockets 

Building towards

Killing herself?


How long had she

Watched the river

Outside her window?

Did each rock’s weight

Haunting

Heaviness 

Represent emotions?


Graveyard on

Outside another

Bedroom window 

Twisted branches

Knotting her hands

Writing no longer

Made her feel 

Less mad 


Colors

of stones same

as her childhood joy

Skipping across

Lady of the Lake 

Laughter! Trauma 

Rocks across

water they need

To be flat 

Light


Hopscotch rocks

Round and heavy

Just like the one she

Stole from her sister 

She stole her sister’s

Boyfriend too

Along with a couple 

of best friends



A daughter who

Carried heavy gray

Rocks sinking her to

Murky bottom

Color gray of her mother’s

Gravestone 

Whispering wounds winds

Never heal

Sacred wings no longer fly

Through black fog metaphors


Did she collect stones for years?

A game with herself 

Lining them across

The Ledge 

Light catching inner colors

Streaming shadow ghost

Beckoning her to play

River nymph muses

Kissing her into oblivion


I pick up a rock and place it 

In my pocket 

Wondering

Wandering 

If she would have chosen it

Burying it next to my 

Pelvic bone

Floating away 

From her words

A stream of contestant

Consciousness


How many stones in Virginia Woolf’s

Pocket did it take for her to drown?





a keepsake


The world came crashing down


She caught it with a flick of her wrist


Locked it in a hanging heart-shaped pendant


Bouncing off the bones of her breath





monet painted water lily moons


She drags the moon down


She hopes it wasn’t against her will


Plays hopscotch with pearl moonstone


Attaches a barbed wire kite string


Drops her into chalk sidewalk art


Rain smears impressionist paintings


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