SANDRA RIDLEY: A POEM

Priska Wettstein, courtesy of Red Edge Images

From Vigil/Vestige

Ecstatic

and liable to rapture

in the hours before dawn.

We’re beckoned to the lake—

to the ruin.

An omen.

Our salvage—shivering by the weeds.

Revenant, we falter toward the good—

for the smallest amount of the most worthless thing.

Sleepless

and with shy sweats

and the cold we’re night-blind by.

After-dream terrors

of a slaughterhouse—

or a labyrinth

akin

to a slaughterhouse.

Lured.

One by one.

Our frights

and nerves.

Sandra Ridley is the author of three books of poetry: Fallout (Hagios Press), Post-Apothecary (Pedlar Press), and most recently, The Counting House (BookThug). She knows how to use a compass. Read our conversation on landscape, language and poetry here.