There’s a village I return to like a beggar working the houses, a burlap sack on my back. I forget what it means to be filled with secrets, the silence of houses sleeping under snow: My memories are a series of windows, smudged by cold and white trees fringing a sunset with branches. Who can read the language on the shadows of gravestones, or a boy’s body curled asleep in snow beneath a slatted fence? I remember two lovers, birds in soundless flight, her hand outstretched to the east, his face turned to the sky. Nothing is given away.
Jared Beloff is the author of WHO WILL CRADLE YOUR HEAD (ELJ Editions, 2023). He is the editor of the Marvel inspired poetry anthology, Marvelous Verses (Daily Drunk, 2021) and has been a peer-reviewer for Whale Road Review since 2021. His work can be found at Night Heron Barks, Barren Magazine, River Mouth Review and elsewhere. You can find him on Twitter @Read_Instead and see his website www.jaredbeloff.com. He is a teacher who lives in Queens, NY with his wife and two daughters.