April Salzano
Darkness is
past the black, beyond the space where shadows
play tricks that require a fragment of light.
The absence of anything definable, further
than deep. The coldest waters, from which
only the strongest emerge, however shaken,
changed. A grave dug early, a love forever lost,
severed. Images that haunt, stillbirths
frozen, stuck behind eyes, photogenes
so bright the contrast consumes all viable
distractions. Not thoughts of revenge, but carrying
them forward to completion. Blood on hands
that do not care if they ever come clean. A place
in the heart from which there is no hope of retreat.
Bio
April Salzano teaches college writing in Pennsylvania where she lives with her husband and two sons. She recently finished her first collection of poetry, for which she is seeking a publisher and is working on a memoir on raising a child with autism. Her work has appeared in journals such as Poetry Salzburg, Convergence, Ascent Aspirations, The Camel Saloon, Centrifugal Eye, Deadsnakes, Montucky Review, Visceral Uterus, Salome, Poetry Quarterly, Writing Tomorrow and Rattle. The author also serves as co-editor at Kind of a Hurricane Press.